Lindsay bound with cords and strangled

Murdered British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker was strangled after her hands and feet were bound with plastic cords – echoing the grisly images of Japanese Manga comics.

As police continued the hunt for the man wanted in connection with the slaying of the London-trained teacher, details of how she met her death were revealed.

It emerged that prime suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi had stalked the pretty 22-year-old in the week before her naked body was found buried in a bath of sand at his flat.

Ichihashi, 28, has been on the run since fleeing barefoot from police when they called at his apartment in Ichikawa, east of Tokyo, to question him about Hawker. Detectives are probing the possibility that comic book fan Ichihashi had played out a sick fantasy from one of the stories in Hentai Manga – piles of which were found in his flat.

The adult comics are extremely popular in Japan and often contain scenes of girls and women being raped and tortured. Hawker’s body was covered in bruises and her hands and feet had been bound with plastic ties normally used for gardening, local police said.

According to officers, Ichihashi met her for the first time at a restaurant on the night of 20 March. He later followed Hawker to her school east of Tokyo. After Hawker’s school reported the woman missing, police found Ichihashi’s phone number in her room and tracked him down.

Police said he was not a student at Nova language school east of Tokyo where Hawker was employed, but he asked Hawker for private lessons and handed her a memo with his phone number on it.

Hawker is believed to have visited Ichihashi’s apartment on Sunday. Police suspect between Sunday night and early on Monday Ichihashi moved the bathtub from the bathroom to the balcony and put Hawker’s body into it.