A MAN accused of strangling a teenager during a perverted sex game before stashing her body in a wardrobe he sealed in clingfilm in a Dudley hostel has opted not to give evidence to a jury.

When the prosecution closed their case against 24-year-old Ashley Foster his defence barrister told Judge James Burbidge QC at Wolverhampton Crown court that she would not be calling any evidence.

The judge asked Jane Bickerstaff QC if she had warned Foster about any inference the jury might draw from his decision and she replied: "I have."

Foster has denied murdering 17-year-old Megan Bills (pictured below) from Stourbridge in his room at a hostel in Highgate Road just days after he was released on licence from a nine-month prison sentence.

Stourbridge News: TRAGIC: Megan Bills. Photo courtesy of West Midlands Police

Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting, has alleged he took her life in a violent attack after what had probably been consensual sex while trying to satisfy his own sexual desires The body of Miss Bills was then pushed into the wardrobe where it decomposed before being found more than two weeks later when hostel staff investigated a "revolting" smell coming from the room.

Then, it is claimed, in the days after the killing Foster scoured internet sites looking for "snuff" movies - films which involved the actual death of a victim or the simulation of death.

Mr Aylett told the jury it had not been possible to determine the cause of death of the former Ridgewood High School student because of the decomposition and she had to be identified through dental records.

Foster wrote in a letter to his mother afterwards that what happened was a pure accident after claiming the teenager asked him to strangle her during sex.

"I strangled her and she loved it," he wrote - adding that he then panicked when he found her dead on his bed the following day.

"It was an accident but that doesn't matter. It is the fact I did it. I tried to hide it with clingfilm like they do in the films but it did not work," wrote Foster, of no fixed address.

He pleaded guilty before the beginning of his trial to preventing the lawful and decent burial of the teenager. But Mr Aylett has alleged he killed her during a violent sex session on the day they met having also asked a former girlfriend if he could strangle her during sex but she had sensibly refused.

Mr Aylett and Miss Bickerstaff will both make their closing speeches to the six-man six-woman jury tomorrow (Friday) and on Monday the judge will sum up the case.

The panel will then retire to consider all the evidence before returning to the court with their verdict on the murder charge.