A DUDLEY man strangled a teenager during a perverted sex session before stashing her body in a wardrobe he covered in clingfilm, a jury has been told.

"What may have begun consensually ended in a violent sex attack," and it resulted in the death of 17-year-old Stourbridge teenager Megan Bills, alleged Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

He said that in the days after the killing 24-year-old Ashley Foster had repeatedly scoured the internet looking at sites for "snuff" movies.

"That Megan's death must be related to some perverted sexual activity on the part of this defendant which involves actual death or the simulation of death is borne out by the internet searches," said Mr Aylett.

"Snuff being a type of film in which someone can actually be seen to be or appears to be murdered or else to commit suicide or appear to commit suicide."

He claimed Foster, who had been released from prison four days before the Easter Sunday murder, had maintained the teenager, who he had just met, told him she "liked to be strangled".

In a letter Foster wrote: "I am sorry but I can't take what I have done. It was an accident but that doesn't matter. It is the fact I did it.

"She tells me she likes to be strangled. I strangled her and she loved it. But then, as I released her, her eyes closed. I just thought she passed out through the orgasm.

"I left her on my bed and I went to my sister's thinking she would be OK. So I thought she would wake up. I ended up staying at my sister's which wasn't the plan. I half expected to find her gone."

Foster, of no fixed address, went on: "First I panicked. I wasn't thinking straight. I put her in the wardrobe and I sealed it until I could think of something. I panicked more and more.

"I didn't know what to do. Days passed and I was still panicking, still thinking 'What have I done?' I tried to hide it with the clingfilm like it is done in the films. But it didn't work."

The body of the teenager, who was homeless at the time, was found nearly three weeks after she was killed when staff at the hostel in Highgate Road where Foster was staying investigated a "revolting" smell coming from his room.

A pathologist was unable to determine the cause of death because of decomposition and the teenager, a former Ridgewood High School student, was finally identified from dental records The prosecution say Megan was killed in room 3 at the hostel and he bundled her body into the wardrobe, tied closed the doors and "left it there to rot," added Mr Aylett.

But it was clear the body was found in Foster's room and his fingerprints were found on the clingfilm.

Megan's blood was also recovered from a shirt that had been placed by Foster in a dustbin outside the hostel.

Mr Aylett said Foster, who had already pleaded guilty to preventing the decent and lawful burial of the teenager, had written in the letter: "The guilt in itself is killing me - ripping me apart inside. I am sorry. I was purely an accident . I just hope you can forgive me for what I have done. It goes to show - one mistake and you lose everything."

"I did not mean to hurt her. That is my life down the pan. I can't handle what I have done. She was only 17-years-old and look what I have done."

Foster said he never meant to cause the teenager any harm. "I did not call anyone. I just stuffed her into the wardrobe. She said she was homeless and me, being a generous person, said she could stay a night or two. She tells me she likes to be strangled and I obliged."

Mr Aylett said Foster knew the teenager had nowhere to stay at the time and that she might not be missed if she "disappeared."

The account given by Foster begged more questions than answers - said Mr Aylett who told the court that because of the state of decomposition when Megan's body was found paramedics did not know if it was male or female.

Mr Aylett told the court that if it was the aim of Foster to let the body decompose so the cause of death would not be discovered then he had got what he wanted.

He said strangulation during sex was a "most extraordinary and warped form of sexual fantasy."

Foster, he went on, maintained the teenager passed out during a moment of ecstasy and he had then left the young girl on his bed in his hostel room.

Megan, said Mr Aylett, had been a much-loved young girl but in the months before her death she had a number of problems.

Foster denies murdering Megan between April 13 and April 20 last year and his trial - expected to last for up to two weeks - is continuing.