A 20-year-old woman was tortured, bound and stabbed to death by a man and his transgender lover for a suspected 'perverted pleasure', a court heard.

Bethany Hill was found drenched in blood with stab wounds to her neck and hands bound with tape in the bathroom of a flat on February 3 last year.

Her two flatmates Kayleigh Louise Woods, 23, and Jack Williams, 21, were later arrested and charged with her murder.

Warwick Crown Court was told today the 'sadistic' killing may have been done by Williams for 'perverted pleasure' and that Woods 'joined in with her lover to please him.'

Bethany Marie Hill was found drenched in blood with stab wounds to her neck and hands bound with tape in the bathroom of a flat on February 3 last year

Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Jack Williams (left) and Kayleigh Woods at Warwick Crown Court where they are accused of murdering Bethany Marie Hill

Kayleigh Louise Woods (left), 23, and Jack Williams (right), 21, were arrested and charged with murder

She was found after Woods made a 999 call at just gone 7pm on February 3 saying 'my best friend's dead in my flat.'

The court heard Woods claimed Beth had committed suicide while she was out of the flat, and said she had returned to find blood everywhere and attempted to clean the flat before phoning the police.

But after the jury was told she was taken to the police station later that evening officers discovered she had tried to dispose of a phone, later found to be Beth's, in a sanitary bin after destroying her own - and she was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Woods, who was born and raised as a boy called Kyle Lockwood, had been in a relationship with Williams at the time of the murder.

The court heard that weeks before the killing, in December 2015, Woods had given her grandmother boxes for storage which she had put in the attic.

On February 6 Woods' grandmother informed the police, and they searched the boxes.

They found a naked Barbie doll that had been bound and gagged with duct tape. Its hair had been coloured in with a felt tip, allegedly to match Beth's.

Stephen Linehan QC, prosecuting, said: 'The doll belonged to Kayleigh Woods. Whoever created the fetish doll was thinking of Beth.'

Warwickshire Police believe Beth (pictured left, with a friend) died as a result of a stab wound to the neck. She was a former pupil at Alcester High School

Mr Linehan also told the court a roll of duct tape had been found in a bag dumped by Woods, as well as a piece of duct tape in the bathroom and a rolled up ball in the flat.

He said: 'She was tortured, then she was killed. Bethany Hill was bound and possibly gagged, using duct tape, as part of the attack that lead to her death.

'They [Woods and Williams] did it together.'

Mr Linehan said the 'sadistic' killing may have been done by Williams for 'perverted pleasure' and that Woods 'joined in with her lover to please him.'

He said: 'Beth had not died as a result of cutting herself. She was brutally, brutally murdered.

'Each of them (the defendants) has spun a web of lies in order to conceal the truth.'

Mr Linehan described Woods as a 'good play actor' and a 'prolific and practised liar'.

Beth had been in a brief relationship with Williams as a teenager, and after moving out of her parents' home in Bidford-on-Avon to attend college in Stratford she met Woods.

She later moved into Woods' one-bedroom flat in Hertford Road, Stratford.

Tragic: Bethany Hill was found dead with neck wounds at a flat in Hertford Road in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

Mr Linehan said: 'It was a friendship that was to have terrible consequences for Beth.'

Williams, who had also grown up in Bidford, had moved out of his mum's house and in with his dad and step-mum in Redlands Crescent, Stratford.

Beth, who had a history of self-harming, introduced Williams and Woods, and the two began a relationship.

By the time they met Woods was already living as a woman and, although Williams knew she was transgender, the pair had a sexual relationship.

Beth, who Mr Linehan described as 'troubled', later dropped out of college and moved back in with her parents.

Bethany's two flatmates Kayleigh Louise Woods, 23, and Jack Williams, 21, were later arrested and charged with her murder

In October 2015, Woods called the police and claimed Williams had threatened her with a knife - he was arrested and returned to live with his dad and step-mum.

Two months later, Beth moved back in with Woods.

But in early January last year, Woods and Williams got back together and Williams secretly moved back in to the flat in Hertford Road, flouting a court order which banned him from living there.

The trio lived together - Williams and Woods slept in the sitting room, while Beth slept in the bedroom.

Mr Linehan said Woods and Beth had a 'complicated and volatile' relationship, and they had discussed Beth having a child fathered by Woods.

A series of text messages read to the court showed the relationship between Beth and the defendants.

One message from Williams to Woods said: 'Put the blade through her throat.'

Mr Linehan said on the night of February 2 and 3, Woods created an elaborate cover-up of text messages to try and cover her tracks.

This included using Bethany's phone after she had been killed.

He said: 'It's completely heartless. While that girl lay dead in the bathroom she even managed to make up a joke on the phones. She didn't care one jot for her.'

Beth had been lying dead in the flat for over 12 hours before she was found by police and paramedics

Police found Woods on Paddock Lane, where she had been when she made the 999 call.

When asked what happened, Woods told officers Beth was 'a mess' who had always been suicidal, and claimed she drank bleach at 3am that morning.

Woods told officers she had left the flat at 7am and returned at 5pm, and said: 'I just wanted to clean up, there was a lot of blood, I didn't see her in the bathroom.'

But Mr Linehan said Beth was murdered during the early hours of the morning.

He said: 'The evidence does not show what each of them did.

'But it does show that the murder was not done quickly.'

The jury heard Beth's wrists had been bound together with duct tape, and she suffered repeated cuts to the back of her neck until her jugular was cut and she bled to death in the bathroom.

Beth had been lying dead in the flat for over 12 hours before she was found by police and paramedics.

Mr Linehan said the attack was carried out sometime between 1am, when Williams returned from work, and 6am.