A pub chef accused of murdering the model Sally Anne Bowman spoke today of his regret at having sex with her dead body.

Mark Dixie, 37, is accused of stabbing the 18-year-old seven times and raping her as she lay dead or dying in the driveway of her home in south London.

Today he voiced what his own lawyer has already referred to as “a very unattractive defence”, claiming that he had stumbled upon the corpse in the driveway and had sexual intercourse with what he took to be an unconscious body, only realising that the person was dead afterwards.

Sally Anne Bowman’s mother, Linda, sat in tears a few feet away and later left the court as Dixie continued to give his evidence.

Dixie said he found the corpse after a drink and drugs binge at a friend’s flat in the same neighbourhood. He said he left the flat at around 4.30am on September 25, 2005, to buy more cocaine when he saw a pair of legs in front of the house in Blenheim Crescent, Croydon, south London.

Asked what he thought, Dixie said: “I have gone over it during the last three years. I don’t know what went through my mind.”

He said the body was naked from the waist down.

“I crouched down from behind where the legs were,” he said. “I took full advantage of someone and I should not have done it.”

His counsel Anthony Glass, QC, asked: “Do you mean you had sexual intercourse with her?”

“Yes,” he replied.

Mr Glass asked: “Did you think she was dead or unconscious?”

He replied: “I would not have expected to see anyone dead in that street. I thought she might have passed out or fallen over.”

He said there was no reaction during the sex attack, even when he bit her. He added: “I did maybe think she would wake up not realising what went on the night before.”

He said that “after a while” he had realised that the teenager was dead. “I panicked. I stood up. I looked at her,” he said. “I did not know what to do.”

He said he realised he would have to cover up his DNA and placed cement dust and concrete from a skip on the body.

He said he then ran back to the friend’s flat at 4.55am. Yesterday Mr Glass told the jury: “It is, you may think, a very unattractive defence.”

He added: “Even though you may think his conduct is disgusting, he allowed his lust to get the better of him.”

Dixie, of no fixed address, denies murder. The trial continues.

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