EXCLUSIVE - 'The sex was good, there was nothing unusual about it': Killer banker Rurik Jutting's last girlfriend escaped murder because he DUMPED her two weeks before torturing prostitutes in orgy of violence (but she still insists he was a good lover)

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A Filipino lover who shared British banker Rurik Jutting's final weekends before his horrific murder spree in Hong Kong has told Mail Online: 'I miss him and I still have feelings for him in spite of everything that's happened.'

Speaking for the first time, bar girl Joanna Mendoza – who had an intense relationship with Cambridge-educated Jutting that ended just a fortnight before the murders – revealed she had written to Jutting in prison and hopes to visit him.

She even discussed marriage with the sexual sadist and revealed that he asked her to come to see him in Hong Kong shortly before he launched into a five-day torture and murder spree that left two innocent sex workers dead.

But 27-year-old Joanna insisted she did not feel lucky to be alive, saying: 'It wasn't the Rurik I know who did those terrible things. The sex was good, there was nothing unusual about it.' 

Today the twisted £350,000-a-year trader was today found guilty of the sadistic murder of 23-year-old Sumarti Ningsih and 26-year-old Seneng Mujiasih who were horrifically abused at his Hong Kong flat in October 2014.

Intense bond: Joanna, pictured above with Jutting, shared the British banker Rurik Jutting's final weekends before his murder spree has told of his stormy work and personal life in the days leading to the grisly killing of two prostitutes in his luxury Hong Kong apartment

Loyal: Joanna had an intense two-month relationship with Cambridge-educated Jutting that ended just a fortnight before the murders – said: 'I still have feelings for him in spite of everything that's happened' 

Ditched: Joanna told how she was left 'heartbroken' when they broke up two weeks before the murders. 'I was in love with him. I had been in love before, but never like I was with Rurik. He was special'

Relationship: Joanna told MailOnline she even discussed marriage with Jutting and said he asked her to come to see him in Hong Kong shortly before the killings. But she insisted she did not feel lucky to be alive, saying: 'It wasn't the Rurik I know who did those terrible things'

Joanna met Jutting in the Club Rio bar in the seedy sex resort of Angeles City in the Philippines where he would go at weekends to escape the pressure of his high-powered job with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

He dumped a previous girlfriend, another bar girl, to be with Joanna in August 2014 – less than three months before the murders – and set his new lover up in Manila with an allowance of 900-pounds a month so she would not see other men.

Speaking to Mail Online, Joanna painted a picture of a kindly lover with a gentle sense of humour that is shockingly at odds with the psychotic killer who tortured and murdered two Indonesian prostitutes in his luxury Hong Kong apartment two weeks after they split.

Jutting's relationship with Joanna ended after a catfight between Joanna's friends and friends of his ex-girlfriend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, which broke out at a time when Joanna said he also appeared to be intense pressure at work.

Dogged by accusatory messages from the ex's friends, Jutting ditched Joanna by email in the second week of October – a fortnight before the Hong Kong murders and just hours before he was due to fly to Manila to meet Joanna for a weekend in the city's £200-a-night Marriott Hotel.

'I was heartbroken,' she said. 'I was in love with him. I had been in love before, but never like I was with Rurik. He was special.  

'Even though he was a foreigner we understood each other. We saw eye to eye and we had the same sense of humour. I loved him and it wasn't just because of his money.

Fond: Joanna met Jutting in the seedy sex resort of Angeles City in the Philippines where he would go at weekends to escape the pressure of his high-powered job with Bank of America Merrill Lynch 

'He finished it because of the pressure he was under at work and because too many friends (of his ex) were sending him messages and he was confused. He thought it was better to end it so that no one would send him any more bad messages.'

Even though they came from vastly different worlds, Jutting was as smitten with Joanna as she was with him, friends say. Bar girls in Hong Kong's Wan Chai red light district who saw the £350,000-a-year banker in the days before the murders say he was heartbroken when they split up even though he was the one who ended the relationship.

A bar girl called Lin who knew the double murderer said: 'He was devastated. The girls from Manila here say he began killing other girls when he couldn't see her anymore.'

Two days after the killings in Hong Kong were discovered, a friend messaged Joanna to tell her Jutting had been arrested for the murders and directing her to news websites showing his arrest.

'I sent Rurik a message on Facebook,' she said. 'I said: 'Rurik is it true? Did you do that? I know you're a nice guy and I can't believe you would do this.' I didn't receive any response because he no longer had his phone after police arrested him.'

The unlikely liaison between the smart, streetwise Manila girl and the public school-educated banker began after Jutting dated another girl and took her out with Joanna and other girlfriends from dingy Club Rio where middle-aged sex tourists pick up Filipino bar girls.

In the incongruous setting of Club Rio where beers cost one pound each and 'lady drinks' around three pounds, the millionaire banker would sit on a grubby sofa surrounded by his then girlfriend and other girls before picking the ones he wanted to take back to his hotel.

Unlikely match: 'The first time I met him I said to myself 'He is the kind of guy who is every girl's dream in Angeles – He is a nice guy, he has money and he treats girls very nicely',' said petite Joanna, who has a nine-year-old son from a previous relationship

Overweight and bearded, the free-spending 30-year-old was an astonishingly good catch for a bar girl in the poverty-racked Philippines where sex tourists are mostly low-income American divorcees aged 50 upwards.

'The first time I met him I said to myself 'He is the kind of guy who is every girl's dream in Angeles – He is a nice guy, he has money and he treats girls very nicely',' said petite Joanna, who has a nine-year-old son from a previous relationship.

'He didn't show any signs of being violent or even rude to the girls. I never saw him taking drugs – only drinking. He drank Asti Martini and San Miguel Light (beer).

'He liked [his ex] because she was tall. The rest of us were kind of jealous but we were okay about it because [she] was our friend and we were happy for her that he chose her to be his girlfriend.'

Jutting took the 90-minute flight from Hong Kong to Angeles City most weekends from spring 2014 onwards and would pay for half a dozen girls at a time to leave Club Rio and stay with him in the nearby sex tourist haunt the ABC Hotel – motto 'You Only Live Once'.

Sex trade: Rurik Jutting spent his weekends in the seedy sex dens of Angeles City in the Philippines, pictured above, where he would go to escape the pressure of his high-powered job with Bank of America Merrill Lynch 

There, he behaved like an indulgent Sultan, plying his harem with food and drink but usually only spent the night with his ex, who cannot be named for legal reasons, while her friends – whose company cost him around £150 a weekend each – slept together in the living room.

'We would stay with him for three days at a time,' Joanna said. 'We were very happy and felt very lucky we had met Rurik and that he paid our bar fines even though we did nothing but eating and sleeping and drinking.

'If you ask any of the girls who stayed with him at the ABC Hotel, they will tell you Rurik was a good guy. He was a nice guy and he never showed any sign of being violent.'

Because she spoke better English than his 22-year-old girlfriend and other girls, Joanna became unofficial translator for their nights out. Then, in August 2014, he phoned her to tell her he was coming to Angeles City and asked if he could pay her bar fine.

'He said he was coming on Thursday morning and asked if he could pay my bar fine and I said 'Yes, okay.' The next day he called again and I asked if he would pay the other girls' bar fines and he said 'Just yours'.

'When we met he said his relationship with [his ex] didn't work out. He was supporting her and she wasn't working but they were no longer together. So I let him pay my bar fine and we went back to the ABC Hotel.

'I slept with him. The sex was good and there was nothing unusual about it. Rurik was very sweet. He is a good lover.' 

Sleazy: One of the bar girls who spent time with Jutting inside Club Rio in Angeles City described how he behaved like a sultan, showering his 'harem' with gifts

Sex tourist: While portly, bearded Jutting might not have been love's young dream, the free-spending 30-year-old was an astonishingly good catch for a bar girl in the poverty-racked Philippines where sex tourists are mostly obese, low-income divorcees aged 50 upwards 

But it was his clumsy handling of his lovers' feelings that was to lead to continuing problems for Jutting as he callously switched from one relationship to another with an apparent lack of feeling.

Jutting abruptly split with his ex – who he had sent home to live with her family on a monthly allowance – and set Joanna up with a similar allowance to live with her family in Manila where he would fly out most weekends and meet her in a hotel.

Although a friend of Jutting's ex, Joanna was pragmatic about the impact of their relationship when Jutting asked her out. 'I told myself 'I am working in a bar, so what should I do?',' she said.

As they spent more time together, Joanna says what started out as a purely monetary transaction developed into a genuine relationship based around humour and food as well as sex. 'We had good times together – not only the sex,' she said.

'He made jokes sometimes and would tell me 'Oh Joanna, my monkey'. I would say 'Oh I am a monkey?' and he would say 'Yes you are a monkey'. I would say 'You tell me I am very beautiful and now you tell me I am a monkey'. Rurik replied 'I am teasing you. I love you'.

'We were always laughing together. When we were in the Marriott (Hotel) he said 'Now Joanna this is a very big hotel and you are very small. I don't want you to get lost' … It wasn't all about sex and it wasn't all about money. I really enjoyed the time we were together.'

Speaking in the tone of an indulgent spouse, Joanna recalled: 'He was worried about his body. He said 'I will go to the gym' and I said 'No way. If you go to the gym you will be a good looking guy'.

'I told him 'It's better that you eat a lot. I wanted him to get bigger and bigger so I wouldn't lose him. He was handsome but I liked him when he was big. He has a cheeky face and I like it.'

Food clearly played a big part in their relationship. 'We liked the same food – salmon steak and garlic prawns was our favourite,' she said. 'We would eat garlic prawns in the ABC Hotel and salmon steak in the Marriott.'

Jutting only spoke of marriage with her once, Joanna said. 'He told me 'No babies until we get married'. I said okay.' She added: 'I agreed with him even though my Mamasan (at Club Rio) told me 'It's much better if you get pregnant with Rurik' but I wouldn't do that.'  

As the pressure on their relationship grew so did work pressure for Jutting, Joanna said. Their weekends together would be interrupted by regular calls on his Blackberry phone.

'He didn't really talk to me about work and I didn't understand what he was talking about,' she said. 'He just said he had stress at work because he had lots of meetings.'

The only time she saw him lose his temper, she said, was with room service staff when his order at the Marriott Hotel was not correct. 'He would get a bit angry with the room attendant over orders sometimes,' she said.

Although she insists he was relaxed in her company, Joanna describes Jutting acting strangely during their final weekends together – sitting up through the night reading books on astronomy while swigging Asti Martini from the bottle.

Excess: Jutting frequented the sleazy bars of Angeles City finding women who were desperate for money, and showered them with attention and gifts 

She realised it would not last. 'Our relationship was difficult because people were trying to destroy us,' said Joanna. 'Rurik was weak at that time. I loved him.

'I said to myself 'Anytime he leaves me, I will accept it'. I prepared myself for what was going to happen.'

In the end, Jutting dumped Joanna by email in the middle of October just weeks after asking her to visit him in Hong Kong. 'He told me 'I don't have any plans to see you for now because there's lot of things and stuff I have to do and I am not going to the Philippines for a while'.

'I replied and said: 'It's okay. I understand. I want to thank you for being a nice guy to me even though we were only been together a short time.' I told him 'I really enjoyed being with you and I will never forget you – I really won't forget you'.'

That was her last message to him before news came through of his arrest in Hong Kong for double murder a little over a fortnight later.

'Everyone tells me I am lucky,' she said. 'They say you and [his other ex girlfriend] are lucky because you are could be dead'. But I don't feel lucky. I am more concerned why Rurik did that. I don't understand it.

'I am happy I am safe of course but I really wonder why he did it. Was it depression? He never got mad at me. It is very shocking because I never saw him get angry or even rude or show any sign of being violent.'

Today – like Jutting's former lover – Joanna is back working in the bars in Angeles City, unable to escape the life that led her into the embrace of a killer and seeming to still only half believe in his crimes as she reads reports of court proceedings online. 

She put aside some of the money Jutting gave her and used it to put her son in a better school and to take a hospitality course that she completed last year and which she hopes will one day allow her to leave the red light strip and begin a career in the hotel industry.

'I'm thankful to Rurik for what he did for me,' she said. 'He gave me and my son the chance of a better future.'

Joanne was horrified as she read about the grisly details of the murders committed by Jutting just weeks after their last weekend together. 'It's so terrible. I just can't imagine Rurik doing those things,' she told MailOnline.

'I hope he's better now because what he did must have been the result of some illness or madness. He is such an intelligent man and when we were together, he was so good to me. That's why I fell so easily for him.'

She added: 'I am a little afraid about what he has done of course but I would like one day to see him again. I still miss him, and I miss the times we had together.'