Chef claims he had sex with teenage model after someone else had killed her

An aspiring model was stabbed to death in a frenzied attack by a man high on cocaine, a court heard yesterday.

Mark Dixie is alleged to have killed Sally Anne Bowman yards from her front door as she returned from a night out.

The force of the attack was so powerful that the blade of the knife passed through the 18-year-old's neck and abdomen, the Old Bailey heard.

As she lay dying, the convicted sex offender is said to have bitten and raped her. Dixie then dragged her body behind a skip, the court was told.

The 37-year-old chef denies murder but has admitted having sex with Miss Bowman. He says she was already dead when he found her.

Prosecutor Brian Altman told the jury: "That astonishingly is his defence. It is born out of desperation. There is not a single grain of truth in it."

He added: "The idea that in one and the same place in the early hours of the morning there was not only a homicidal maniac who motivelessly stabbed a beautiful young woman to death but also a sex offender is a ludicrous claim borne of desperation."

He went on: "There is no other way of describing it other than to say that Sally Anne had been savagely and brutally killed.

"This was not a motiveless attack. Her killer murdered her for his own sexual gratification."

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Mr Altman told the jury that Dixie targeted the teenager in the early hours following the night of his 35th birthday.

Neighbours heard screams at the time of the attack at 4am on September 25, 2005. One told police she saw a man "acting furtively" and heard the sound of something being dragged along the road.

It was not until 6.30am, however, that the victim was found in a pool of blood. She had been stabbed seven times. Her handbag and underwear have never been found.

Miss Bowman's mother Linda left court in tears yesterday as distressing pictures of her daughter's body were shown in court.

Dixie's DNA was found on the body, as were his fingerprints. There were four bitemarks on the victim's upper body and face.

Mr Altman said: "The defendant confesses that he had sex with Sally Anne and that he had sex with her after her death. But he denies he is the killer."

The court heard that Miss Bowman dreamed of gracing the front cover of Vogue magazine and had already been approached by a model agency.

A bright student excelling in music and drama, she won a place at the BRIT performance art college in Croydon before starting a course in hair styling at Carshalton College.

The "lively and happy girl" was working as a hairdresser at the time of her death.

On the night of September 24 she had been on a night out in Croydon, South London, with her sister Nicole.

Wearing a white crop top and a short denim skirt, the teenager kissed her mother goodbye as she left the family home.

She promised to send her mother a text message when she was safely home - but never did.

Miss Bowman was driven to her home on Blenheim Crescent in Croydon, a street where Dixie once lived, by her 20-year-old boyfriend Lewis Sproston.

The pair had a row in the car around 4am then Mr Sproston left her yards from her front door. He later told police he thought he had seen a man walking slowly past the car while they argued.

Earlier that night, the court heard, Dixie had been drinking with friends after a camping trip in Kent.

The Streatham-born father-of-three, described as a recreational drug user, had snorted several lines of cocaine.

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Dixie, who was staying overnight at a friend's home near the murder scene, is said to have become upset when his girlfriend, Stacey Nivet, with whom he had a son, refused to go out with him on his birthday.

When he was arrested and questioned about the murder in June 2006, he is alleged to have said: "I must be mental to do something like that, eh?"

Police raided several properties in Horley, Surrey, and Croydon where he had been staying.

They recovered a video of Dixie performing a lewd sex act on the six-month anniversary of the model's death, the court heard.

A stash of newspapers covering the murder were later found at the home of the cousin where he had been staying.

The court heard that Dixie was convicted in 1988 of indecent assault and actual bodily harm after attacking a Jehovah's Witness.

He punched the mother-of-three to the ground before indecently assaulting her.

He has also been accused of stabbing and sexually assaulting a Thai student in Perth, Western Australia, in 1998, the court was told.

The case continues.