Model 'murdered by knifeman in search of sex'

A girl who dreamed of being a top model was murdered in her driveway by a knifeman determined to commit a violent sex act, a court has heard.

Sally Anne Bowman, 18, whose ambition was to appear on the front page of Vogue, was stabbed, bitten and sexually assaulted before and after she died.

	Neighbours heard Sally Anne Bowman screaming as she was attacked outside her home

The attack by 37-year-old chef Mark Dixie was so brutal that the blade of his knife passed through his victim's neck and abdomen, the Old Bailey was told.

Dixie admitted having sex with Miss Bowman after she had died while he was high on drink and drugs. But the convicted sex offender claimed he stumbled across her body and that she had been murdered by someone else.

Brian Altman, prosecuting, said of Dixie's defence: "The idea that in one and the same place 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 out of desperation," he said.

"All you have to do is look at the state in which Sally Anne had been left after she was murdered to realise that, no matter how intoxicated the defendant claims to have been, having sexual intercourse with Sally Anne in that state and in those circumstances is simply beyond the pale as to be pure fiction."

Judge Gerald Gordon told the jury of seven women and five men that Dixie's admission that he had sex with the teenager might be regarded with revulsion but their responsibility was to decide if he had killed her.

On the first day of an expected four-week trial, the jury was given graphic details of the murder.

Miss Bowman's parents and two of her sisters were in court. One sister walked out as details and photographs of her sister's injuries were produced.

Mr Altman said that Dixie had armed himself with a knife "to commit a violent sex act", regardless of the identity of his victim.

Miss Bowman had celebrated her 18th birthday two weeks before she was attacked.

"Sally Anne Bowman's murder was motivated by sex," Mr Altman said. "He clearly murdered her for his own sexual gratification. There is no other way of describing it, other than to say that Sally Anne had been savagely and brutally killed."

Miss Bowman's naked body was discovered by a neighbour in Blenheim Crescent, Croydon, south London, on Sept 25, 2005. She had been dropped off by her boyfriend, Lewis Sproston, at about 4am after a night out in Croydon with her sister, Nicole.

As she walked to her front door she was attacked and although her screams were heard by several neighbours no one saw the killing.

A post mortem examination revealed that she had been stabbed seven times, bitten four times and suffered cuts to her arms and hands as she tried to fight off her attacker. She had been seriously sexually assaulted.

Mr Altman said the defendant's DNA was found on her body, his bloody fingerprint on her shoe and his bite marks on her face and body.

London-born Dixie, dressed in a black suit and blue tie, listened impassively, occasionally taking notes. The jury was told that he had spent several years in Australia in the 1990s before returning to Croydon in 2003.

Known as a "recreational drug user" with significant mood swings, the court heard that he had had several failed relationships, which produced three children.

Mr Altman said Dixie had turned 35 the night before Miss Bowman was murdered and had gone for a prolonged drinking session and taken two lines of cocaine with friends.

He was depressed about the breakdown of his latest relationship with his girlfriend, Stacey Nivet, with whom he had a son.

On the night of the murder, he stayed with a friend in Avondale Road, two streets from Blenheim Crescent, and was seen slumped on the sofa at 2.30am and then again at 10.30am, several hours after Miss Bowman's body was found.

Dixie was arrested in June 2006, at a pub in Horley, Surrey, where he worked as a chef. DNA swabs linked him to the crime scene, the jury heard.

Mr Altman said that police found a video dated March 2006, in which Dixie recorded himself committing a sex act in front of a newspaper bearing Miss Bowman's image.

He told the jury: "The defendant was reliving not just the sexual acts and other indignities he had performed on Sally Anne's body that night in September 2005 but he was also reliving killing her."

The trial continues.