A German man killed a British student by stabbing him 86 times after becoming obsessed with his girlfriend, whom he had met on an internet gaming website, a court heard yesterday.

Nottingham Crown Court was told that David Heiss, 21, flew to Britain from Limburg, near Frankfurt, for 16 hours to attack Matthew Pyke, 20, at his flat in Nottingham on September 19 last year.

The murder was motivated by “hatred and obsession”, said Shaun Smith, for the prosecution. “It was obsession for Joanna Witton, who was Matthew’s girlfriend, and hatred for Matthew, because he was Joanna’s boyfriend.”

Mr Heiss found Miss Witton, 20, on a cyber-war website that Miss Witton and Mr Pyke had set up while living and studying together at Nottingham Trent University.

Mr Smith told the jury that Mr Heiss had contacted Miss Witton in March last year telling her that he had a crush on her. Mr Heiss had been looking at photographs of her on Facebook, the social networking website. Despite Miss Witton’s insistence that she was in a relationship, the messages from Mr Heiss became increasingly bizarre and intimate, the court heard. On May 3 Mr Heiss professed his love for her and on June 21 he flew over to make the first of two surprise visits to her and Mr Pyke.

Miss Witton tried to book him into a hotel but he insisted on sleeping at the end of the couple’s bed. When he returned to Germany Mr Pyke contacted him, writing: “I hate you for ever laying eyes on the girl I have dedicated my life to. I hate you for your desperation.”

The jury heard that in a conversation with another gamer Mr Heiss said he wanted to smash Mr Pyke’s head against a wall. By August Miss Witton had decided to block Mr Heiss from their website.

Mr Smith told the court that Mr Heiss had tried to make the murder look like a suicide by having his sister log on to the internet under his alias on the evening of September 18 as he flew to Britain. In his suitcase was a note written to appear as if it were by Mr Pyke.

Mr Heiss waited until Miss Witton left for work at 6.55am. Mr Smith said: “She hugged and kissed Matthew. She told him that she loved him and sadly that was the last time she saw him alive.”

Photographs shown to the jury showed a trail of blood from the doorway to the bedroom. “It is the prosecution case that Matthew had absolutely no chance at that door, where that blood is,” said Mr Smith.

Miss Witton, who gave evidence from behind a curtain in court yesterday, said that the couple’s social life had revolved around their love of computer games.

She said she had not thought she needed to worry about Mr Heiss but became worried.

“I started blanking him as if to say leave me alone. I was afraid he was going to turn up again and I didn’t know what he was capable of,” she said. Miss Witton told the court that the night before her boyfriend died they had celebrated their third anniversary.

The court was told that in a police interview after his arrest Mr Heiss said that he had stabbed Mr Pyke “indiscriminately” but was only fighting back. He claimed he had written the suicide note in his bag to “cheer himself up”.

The trial continues.

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