Ahsan Hassan and Usmar Ansar, both of Dashwood Avenue, were charged over murder of High Wycombe woman Zofia Sadowska

20-year-old Zofia Sadowska, from High Wycombe, enraged the 28-year-old by dating his childhood friend and sparked a series of stalking incidents which ended in her death.

CCTV footage showed "utterly fixated" Ahsan Hassan, of Dashwood Avenue, hiding behind bins to stalk Zofia in High Wycombe weeks before he carried her "limp and completely floppy" body out of the Dennis’s Kebab Shop in Micklefield and into a taxi.

Jurors were told that Hassan admitted manslaughter by killing the Polish woman in what he described as part of a lovers' suicide pact, but he denies a charge of murder.

Hassan stood in the dock with his childhood friend from Pakistan, Usmar Ansar, who was accused of lying to police to protect his friend after feeling "very guilty" about having sexual relations with Ms Sadowska behind his back.

The jury heard that emergency services discovered Hassan in a pool of blood with deep self-inflicted cuts to his wrist next to Zofia's body in his room on September 19 last year.

They were told by the prosecuter that seeing the "vivacious" young woman go to a hotel with another man days earlier was the "final insult" before Hassan, who was known as "Ali", tricked her to go to the kebab shop, in Gayhurst Road, where he had previously worked and still had a set of keys.

Forensic investigators at the scene.

Prosecutor Alan Blake said: "It is the prosecution’s case that by September 18 last year Ali had become jealous and controlling over Zofia. Despite their continuing relationship, she remained living with her partner rather than moving in with him.

"She continued to drink too much and to enjoy the attentions of other men.

"Having been convinced that he could change her, by the weekend of September 17 and 18, it must have become apparent to Ali that she was not going to conform according to his wishes.

"However he was quite unable to let her go and quite unable to allow anyone else to have her. The trip to the Crowne Plaza hotel with another man was the final insult," said Mr Blake.

"It may be that having killed the woman with whom he had become utterly fixated and faced with the prospect of being prosecuted for her murder, the defendant Ali genuinely made an attempt on his life on that Monday morning."

Mr Blake said that the defence maintained that not only did he want to die on the morning of September 19 but that Zofia had also wanted to die and that he killed her as part of a suicide pact rather than out of his jealousy, frustration and inability to let her go.

He added: "The Crown say that that was, and still is, the defendant seeking to dress up and make more palatable and honourable what was actually the premeditated, callous and, ultimately utterly selfish murder of a young mother with a lot to live for.

"He must have taken Zofia into the disused restaurant on Gayhurst Road under false pretences. There it appears he restrained her and used physical violence upon her before asphyxiating to incapacity and quite probably to death.

"Having incapacitated her or killed her he put her in a taxi and took her back to the home address, maintaining the charade that she was drunk and asleep."

The jury heard that a forensic investigation of the kebab shop revealed Zofia's saliva and hair was on "cling film and brown tape" which was found in a bin and a net curtain which had been taken from Hassan's home was used to form handloops to strangle or bind her.

Forensic investigators collect evidence, including what appears to be a roll of cling film.

A post mortem examination which was carried out on her body at Stoke Mandeville Hospital revealed that there was no alcohol in her body at the time of her death, the cause of which was found to be asphyxia consistent with compression of the neck.

The jury was also told a pathologist found bruising to her arms "consistent with forceful gripping" and marks around her wrists and right ankle that would be consistent with restraint or binding.

Red marks around her neck matching the circular grooves on her silver necklace which police found thrown away near Hassan's home were also found.

Jurors were shown CCTV footage taken of Hassan stalking Zofia as she and a friend walked through the Eden shopping centre in the town centre, just weeks before she was killed.

The jury sitting at Reading Crown Court heard Zofia was drunk and the pair were followed as they sat on a bench to eat a kebab.

Officers in Dashwood Avenue.

Mr Blake said: "CCTV footage from the town centre reveals a male figure wearing a bandana following the couple through the shopping centre.

“He keeps his distance, pressing himself against the wall. As the couple sit on a bench to eat he is hiding round the corner, trying to observe them, at one stage crawling underneath a bin to try to watch them covertly.

"Such was his behaviour that it attracted the attentions of the security guard who went out to speak to Zofia to check that all was well.

"His actions on September 6, as recorded on those CCTV cameras, speak volumes about the level of his obsession with Zofia and his jealous fixation with her when she was spending time with another man."

Ali's childhood friend from Pakistan, with whom he shared a room and bed in a house share in Dashwood Avenue, Usman was said to have acted as a "go-between" between the lovers during a break in their relationship.

The jury heard he started having relations with Zofia behind his friend's back.

Hassan faces one charge of murder while Usman Ansar faces one count of perverting the course of justice.

The trial, presided over by Judge Johanna Cutts, was adjourned until tomorrow.