A man murdered a transgender woman after a three-day sex and drugs binge before recruiting his teenage girlfriend to help clean up the crime, a court has heard.

Jesse McDonald, 25, is accused of drugging Naomi Hersi, 36, before stabbing her to death with a knife and a broken bottle in the hotel room where he stayed near Heathrow airport, in the UK.

The Old Bailey heard that “bright and articulate” McDonald had met his victim when he went looking for excitement online and found her profile on a website called Fabswingers.com.

After the killing he got bags and cleaning products before contacting his girlfriend, Natalia Darkowska, 18, who joined him in the attempted clean-up, the jury was told.

Mark Heywood QC, prosecuting, said McDonald had planned to dispose of the body, but the victim was found half naked, partly covered by a rug on the bathroom floor. “Each was thinking only of themselves and each other – without a care for the deceased, whom they believed was unlikely, because of her lifestyle, to be missed,” Heywood said.

McDonald denies murder between 14-18 March 2018, while he and Darkowska both deny perverting the course of justice between 15-18 March the same year.

Heywood said McDonald would claim self-defence. He told the jurors: “You will not have to decide whether there was a killing or who did it. The first defendant, Jesse McDonald, accepts he inflicted all of the many injuries that caused the terrible, violent, death she suffered.”

The court heard that Hersi, whose full name was Hersi Mohamed Hersi, was a transgender woman, although to her family, who are originally from Somalia, she remained a much-loved son.

McDonald, who grew up in West Sussex, did well in school, but turned to dealing drugs after dropping out of the London School of Economics, it was said. He met Hersi, who lived in Mill Hill, north-west London, online, before spending four days with her, jurors were told.

Heywood said McDonald had been looking for a sexual encounter and knew early on that Hersi was a transgender woman, who had not undergone surgery. “He was looking for something edgy, a little bit risky and possibly prepared to use drugs in the course of the experience. They passed time together, took drugs and had sex at her address, to which she had invited him.”

Heywood added: “After three days of that, he took her back to her address. After a time, he drugged her, fought with her and eventually killed her, stabbing and cutting her multiple times with a broken bottle and knife and perhaps other things in order to achieve her death. When it was done, when she was dead, he tried to clean it up and avoid detection.”

The court heard that McDonald then contacted others, including his girlfriend at the time, Darkowska, whom he had also met online and who was living with her family, from Poland, in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

“His girlfriend, the second defendant, travelled to him and joined in with him at this stage of the attempted clean up,” said Mr Heywood. “Once she understood what had to be done, she went to buy the necessary things and tried to help and support him through it.”

The trial continues.