A MAN accused of murdering two French students did not know they had been killed until he tripped over one of their bodies, the Old Bailey heard today (May 19).

Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez were bound, tortured and stabbed to death during a burglary in Sterling Gardens, New Cross, on the morning of June 29 last year.

One of the men accused of killing them, Dano Sonnex, today admitted for the first time that he had entered the flat and tied up Mr Ferez.

He claimed he left his co-defendant Nigel Farmer alone with the two men while he hid items stolen from the flat and withdrew £360 on Mr Bonomo's bank card.

After trying and failing to call Farmer from a Clifton Rise phone box, Sonnex said he returned to Sterling Gardens and tapped on the kitchen window.

Sonnex said Farmer handed him Mr Ferez's bank card, telling him the PIN number.

But when Sonnex tried to use this card it was swallowed by a machine, and he returned to the flat.

He said: “As I came up to the living room I remember tripping. And when I tripped that's when I landed on a body.”

Sonnex said this was Mr Bonomo's body, lying on the floor, and that his hands had touched the dead student, covering them in blood.

He said: “His face was bloody, I remember that.”

Sonnex said Farmer was standing at the end of the bed “hissing and shaking his head”, saying “this is naughty”.

The defendant said he tried to “get away” from the dead student and came across the body of Mr Ferez, lying by the bed.

Sonnex then went to wash his hands in the bathroom where police later found diluted blood on the taps and round the toilet.

He said: “I just wanted to wash the blood off my hands.”

Sonnex added: “I just wanted to get out of the place as soon as possible.”

He claimed the pair left the bedsit at around 8.20am that morning and met up again at his neighbour's house in Etta Street, Deptford.

Sonnex said they then burnt the clothing they had worn together in the back garden.

The defendant, out of prison on licence at the time after being convicted of robbery and wounding with intent in 2003, was visited by police that day in relation to his licence.

Sonnex said he hid from them in a neighbour's house.

Afterwards, the defendant went to stay with a friend in Woolwich where he tried to use Mr Bonomo's card again.

He was eventually arrested at his grandparents' home in Peckham where he allegedly threatened to "bite a policeman's face off".

But Sonnex told the court: “I'd say I threatened to smash his face off.”

He added: “He's a police officer. I don't click with them.”

The court had earlier heard allegations from Sonnex that police officers had beaten up his father during a failed search for guns and drugs several years ago.

Sonnex, aged 23, of Etta Street, Deptford, and Farmer, aged 34, of no fixed address, deny murder, arson and false imprisonment.

Farmer denies burglary but Sonnex admits the charge.

The trial continues.