Jealous ex-boyfriend, 28, 'murdered his ex-girlfriend, 20, by gagging her with clingfilm and masking tape after she started dating his childhood friend'

• Zofia Sadowska, 20, was found dead in a room in High Wycombe in September 
• Her ex-boyfriend, Ahsan Hassan, allegedly became jealous of her relationship
• She had just started dating his childhood friend, Reading Crown Court was told

A jealous ex-boyfriend murdered his former lover by gagging her with clingfilm and masking tape after she dated his childhood friend, a court heard. 

Ahsan Hassan, 28, allegedly became jealous when 20-year-old Zofia Sadowska got involved with his friend.

Her new relationship sparked a series of stalking incidents which ended in her death, Reading Crown Court was told. 

CCTV footage showed 'utterly fixated' Hassan hiding behind bins to stalk her weeks before he carried her 'limp and completely floppy' body out of a takeaway shop and into a taxi, the court heard.

Jurors were told that Hassan admitted manslaughter by killing the Polish beauty 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 Ms Sadowska's body in his room on September 20.

The court was told that seeing the 'vivacious' young woman go to a hotel with another man days earlier was the 'final insult'.

Hassan, who was known as 'Ali', tricked her to go to the Dennis kebab shop in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where he had worked previously and still had the keys for, the court heard.

Alan Blake, prosecuting, said: 'It is the prosecution 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.

'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 Ms Sadowska had also wanted to die.

He said the defence claim he killed her as part of a suicide pact rather than out of his jealousy, frustration and inability to let her go.

Mr Blake 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 her saliva and hair was on 'clingfilm and brown tape' which was found in a bin. 

A net curtain which had been taken from Hassan's home was used to form handloops to strangle or bind her, the court was told. 

A post-mortem examination which was carried out on her body at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury, revealed that there was no alcohol in her body at the time of her death.

The cause of death 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. 

Hassan faces one charge of murder while Usman Ansar, both of High Wycombe, faces one count of perverting the course of justice.

The trial continues.