A 23-YEAR-OLD man accused of murdering two French students was capable of killing them all by himself, a court heard today.

Nigel Farmer and Dano Sonnex are both accused of murdering French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez on the morning of June 29 last year.

But Farmer claims he left his co-defendant at Cold Blow Lane, Deptford, and went home.

Today (May 27), his defence counsel John Ryder told the Old Bailey jury that Sonnex was perfectly capable of carrying out the murders in Sterling Gardens, New Cross, on his own.

He said: “His capacity for violence is truly terrible and terrifying.”

Mr Ryder referred to allegations that early last year, two days after being released from five years in prison, Sonnex tied up and threatened his own pregnant foster sister.

The barrister said the attack was carried out “in exactly the way that he was to attack Mr Bonomo and Mr Ferez some months later”.

On both occasions, the victims' limbs were bound, their heads were covered and bladed instruments were used, he said.

During the Sterling Gardens incident, Sonnex twice left the flat where the students were tied up, to use their bank cards in cash machines on New Cross Road.

But Mr Ryder speculated that the two men may have been dead even before he left the flat for the first time.

He said: “No need to leave Mr Farmer there for hours, no need to leave anyone there for hours, because there was nothing else the two young men could do.

“Mr Sonnex had killed them.”

And Mr Ryder said after only managing to get £360 from a machine using Mr Bonomo's card, it was likely Sonnex went back and stabbed the dead bodies again.

The barrister said Sonnex sprinkled petrol round the bedsit and turned on an iron, hoping a spark from the appliance would ignite the fumes.

When that failed to work, he claimed Farmer was sent to the scene to start a fire.

Farmer admits setting fire to the bedsit at around 10pm on June 29, but claims he was being threatened by the Sonnex family, with whom he was living at the time.

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.