I was insane: the man who cut up Cara in Brazil

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Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho Dos Santos, who has confessed to killing 17-year-old Cara Marie Burke, from Southfields, near Wimbledon, was "totally dependent" on a range of drugs, Dr Carlos Trajano said.

"He took everything you can possibly imagine - he even sniffed cooking gas," said Dr Trajano, whose client faces up to 36 years in jail if convicted of the murder in Brazil. He was addicted to drugs including crack cocaine and a concoction known in Brazil as merla, a mixture of coca paste and battery acid, Dr Trajano told The Guardian. It is sold on the streets of Jardim Novo Mundo, a district where Miss Burke spent much of her time in Goiania, a sprawling city in central Brazil.

Dos Santos had allegedly been awake for four days after taking cocaine when the killing happened.

He was taken in handcuffs to the scene of his crime. Police said he had bragged to his brother, Bruce Lee, who lives with their mother in London, in a text message that Miss Burke was "in the bag".

The message was found in Dos Santos's mobile phone, which he used to photograph Miss Burke's severed head after he allegedly placed it on top of her torso with a bloody butcher knife.

Shortly after his arrest last Thursday, Dos Santos, 20, tried to bribe police to let him go, offering officers 70,000 reals (£22,000) which he said he would get from his mother, said Inspector Jorge Moreira da Silva.

The attempted bribery was recorded by police and broadcast on national television. "The biggest reward we could receive is to see a psychopath like yourself behind bars," a police officer is heard saying on the audio recording.

Police say Dos Santos confessed to killing Miss Burke, who was visiting from Britain, on 25 July and then cut up her body because she had threatened to tell his parents that he was a drug dealer and addicted to cocaine.

Miss Burke's friends say they had warned her to keep her distance from Dos Santos. The couple met in London, and lived together briefly in Dos Santos's flat in Goiania. Her friends said Miss Burke was afraid of him.