An Ipswich man who killed a gay hairdresser and claimed the victim touched him has been jailed for 18 years.

Rodney Greenland, 47, of Manchester Road, Ipswich, stabbed 36-year-old Simon Amers to death last July.

He claimed he “flipped” when Mr Amers made sexual advances to him.

The pair had met in a pub on the night of July 27th and returned to Mr Amers’ flat in Wigeon Close for a drink.

The victim’s naked body was found by his friends in a pool of blood at his flat several days later.

He had been stabbed seven times.

Greenland admitted manslaughter but denied murder.

He told police that the victim, who was gay, began stroking his leg. He said that Mr Amers then followed him into another room and tapped his shoulder.

Greenland said he picked up a knife and slashed Mr Amers, who fell down the stairs.

While being interviewed by detectives, he said he had been abused at boarding school as a child and “flipped”.

Ipswich crown court heard that Greenland had repeatedly confessed to the murder in the days after the killing but was not believed because no body had been discovered.

He told friends, family members, police and a doctor he had killed a man.

Police drove him around the area where Mr Amers lived in an effort to jog his memory but when he could not remember where he had been, they assumed he was drunk and nothing had happened.

According to the East Anglia Daily Times, Godfried Duah, a prosecuting lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Greenland needlessly took Simon’s life.

“One minute they were sharing a drink and the next he was subjected to a frenzied attack by a cold-blooded killer.”