A prison officer from Crystal Palace is facing life behind bars this week after he was found guilty of killing a homosexual man by kicking his head "like a football" and then putting a plastic bag over his head to make sure he was dead.

Francis Kavanagh, 34, flew into a rage after heavily-built homosexual Michael Smith tried to "touch him up" in a bar near Wandsworth Prison, the Old Bailey heard last week.

Kavanagh had been out for the night with other warders from the jail on the night of the killing, four days before last Christmas, and planned to go to a School Disco' themed night in the West End dressed as a schoolboy.

But he violently kicked 58-year-old Mr Smith, known to friends as Keith, with heavy workboots after having an

encounter' with the man.

The defendant later admitted to his girlfriend to putting a plastic bag over his 18-stone victim's head to ensure he was dead.

The jury unanimously found Kavanagh, from Church Road, guilty of murder last Thursday (July 9).

The prison officer had denied murdering Mr Smith on December 21 last year.

He admitted fighting with the victim and said it had started after the gay man touched him "sexually" by some bushes.

Kavanagh left the County Arms pub in Wandsworth going to a nearby friend's house to change into shorts for the school disco night.

A tipsy Mr Smith was seen leaving the pub at 8.30pm to go to his nearby home and two of Kavanagh's colleagues then saw the defendant run towards the block of flats.

Prosecutor Sir Alan Green QC said: "It must have been very shortly after that the encounter took place between Kavanagh and Keith Smith which resulted in Mr Smith's death."

Kavanagh went back to the pub at 9pm and continued drinking late into the night. Mr Smith's body was discovered the next morning in a secluded areas of the first floor landing of his block of flats.

July 17, 2002 12:30