Sally Anne Bowman was murdered in September 2005

Pub chef Mark Dixie, 37, told friends: "Are you calling me a murderer?" and left the country, the Old Bailey heard.

Mr Dixie denies stabbing the 18-year-old model seven times in her driveway in Croydon, south London, during a sex attack in 2005.

He claims he had sex with her corpse after he found her body.

The chef's friend Victoria Chandler told the court Mr Dixie stayed at her flat a couple of streets away on the night Miss Bowman was killed.

'Why should I?'

She left him on the sofa at 0230 BST and he was still there at 1030 BST, the court heard.

One or two weeks later, he called back to see his friend Justin Everard and the talk turned to the model's murder, Miss Chandler told the jury.

She said: "The police was wanting males to give DNA in the area. Justin said Mark should go and give DNA.

"Mark got quite angry, saying: 'Are you calling me a murderer?'." He had added: "Why should I? I was in the flat all night."

Miss Chandler said he went to Amsterdam a couple of days after the conversation.

The friends had been to a local pub to celebrate Mr Dixie's 35th birthday hours before Miss Bowman was murdered on 25 September.

Became upset

He had taken two lines of cocaine and had been drinking until closing time, said Miss Chandler.

Mr Dixie, Miss Chandler and friend Diane Glassborow returned to her flat with bottles of wine, which they drank.

Miss Glassborow told the court she saw Dixie snort another line of cocaine at the flat.

She told the court Mr Dixie had become upset when they wished him happy birthday because his girlfriend Stacey had not phoned him.

The trial continues.