Family of Becky Watts in court as jury sworn for trial

Nathan Matthews and Shauna Hoare stand accused of murdering Becky Watts between February 18 and 25 this year.

A couple who had the dismembered body of teenager Becky Watts stored in their garden shed have pleaded guilty to assisting an offender, it can be reported for the first time.

Becky had been treated for anorexia and anxiety and told a doctor she was “frightened” and “didn’t like” Matthews. “The prosecution say it became clear as the police investigation continued that all those items bought at B&Q were needed to be used in the dismemberment of Becky Watts’ body”.

“Nathan Matthew finally admitted the killing, stating that he had tried to kidnap and imprison Rebecca Watts and said that he had strangled her”, Mr Mousley said.

Her body parts were discovered on 2 March.

Both Matthews and Hoare are accused of repeatedly lying to police by claiming they had heard a front door slam and Becky leave her home on February 19.

The court heard Becky Watts told a told a close friend in 2013 she was scared of her stepbrother Nathan Matthews.

Becky’s cause of death was given as strangulation.

A judge had made an order preventing the media from reporting their guilty pleas until the trial of the other people allegedly involved in Becky’s murder began.

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The day after the alleged murder, one of them typed “Do you want to hide a body?” into a YouTube search.

A pathologist confirmed she had been repeatedly stabbed after her death.

The pair shared an “unnatural interest in attractive teenage females”, a jury at Bristol Crown Court has heard.

“All apparently normal behaviour, other than the fact they had a dead body on their hands”, the prosecutor told the court.

She was suffocated “despite her fighting for her life”, the court was told.

Traces of Becky’s hair were found with a bloodstain in the boot of the Vauxhall Zafira, .

Matthews, of Hazelbury Drive, Warmley, South Gloucestershire, Hoare, of Cotton Mill Lane, Bristol, Demetrius, of Marsh Lane, Redfield, Bristol and Ireland, of Richmond Villas, Avonmouth, deny the charges against them.

That evening, the couple ordered a Chinese meal from a takeaway where Matthews worked and later attempted to call a pizza company, as well as watching television.

The court heard Matthews and Hoare were assisted by four others in moving Becky’s body.

Mousley QC tells the court police said Matthews seemed “genuinely concerned” when they responded to the family’s missing person report.

Matthews and Hoare, who had been in a relationship for six years, arranged for a key to be left outside the property so they could let themselves in.

Two stun guns were found at home of Mr Matthews and Miss Hoare, the court was told.

Watts was last heard from on February 11 at about 11 a.m., when she sent a text message to her boyfriend, officials said.

“It was about that time that Darren Galsworthy returned home from work”.

They were arrested on suspicion of kidnap and subsequently murder after Matthews’ fingerprints were found on Becky’s blood on door frames there.

Body parts were found in a garden shed several days after she disappeared from her family home in Crown Hill, Bristol.

Hoare pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, murder, preventing burial, preventing the course of justice and possessing illegal stun guns, The New York Daily News wrote.

Mr Matthews denies charges of murder and conspiracy to kidnap.