Yes but the penultimate date expressed a somewhat perfect experience.I fundamentally disagree with your analysis here.
It's effectively immaterial as to whether this man had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at the point when he began choking her. For the sake of argument, we can posit that he didn't have any such intent at that point.
But....
....the only important factor to consider is whether or not this man must have had intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he actually did cause her death.
And the striking evidence which convinces me (and, it would appear, the trial jury) that this man must indeed have had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he caused her death is - as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.
Now, this action is (IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) wholly incompatible with that of a man whose sole innocent intent is to perform an erotic asphyxiation act upon a sexual partner, with the sole aim of heightening her sexual arousal. Once she'd been choked unconscious - a point which cannot fail to be noticed by the one doing the choking, on account of the fact that she'd have become limp and unresponsive with her eyes closed - the "aim of the game" would clearly and obviously have been surpassed.
Someone whose sole intent was to assist in the heighened sexual arousal of his sex partner would have released his grip at that point (or at most, within several seconds thereafter), in order to allow his partner to regain consciousness. But what the man in this case did instead was to carry on choking the limp, lifeless body of Millane for many dozens of seconds further. There can (again IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) be no other explanation for this than that he must have intended to cause Millane serious injury or death. And that's murder.
This is confounding evidence by any measure. Let us assume he was sober then but drunk with Ms Millane...
(since I kind of agree with your customary use of repeated ... to keep people reflecting, I am not being a plagiarist )