A wealthy jeweller accused of murdering a Hampshire student in a jealous rage told a friend he wanted to suffocate a former partner with a pillow after she left him, a court heard today.

Liam Costello, 21, told Winchester Crown Court that Elliot Turner, 20, would get annoyed when he split with girlfriends and was ''obsessive''.

He said Turner, who denies strangling 17-year-old Brockenhurst Cllege student Emily Longley in his bedroom, had even broke into the house of one ex-girlfriend to see her.

''He was quite obsessive. He would talk about them (girlfriends) quite a lot in a normal kind of chatty way. He was always trying to see them, trying to see where they were,'' Mr Costello explained.

When asked about one ex-girlfriend he had broken up from named in court as Laura, Mr Costello said Turner had gone to the house and work, and had said he had broken in to her home in order to see her.

When asked by Tim Mousley QC, prosecuting, about what Turner said when he split with Laura, Mr Costello replied: “He said if he saw her he would suffocate her with a pillow.''

Mr Costello said he talked about aspiring model Emily with Turner over his fears she was seeing other men and he would get ''agitated''.

One time, he told the court, Turner had said: ''I will kill her, spend ten years in prison and still come out a millionaire.''

Under cross-examination, Mr Costello agreed that Turner boasted a lot and he considered the wild comments he made were ''fantasy and rubbish''.

The court has already heard Turner and Emily had a volatile relationship and the couple had argued in the bedroom in Bournemouth, on May 7 last year, and that he claims she attacked him and he defended himself.

He explained he woke up beside her later that morning, started to get ready for work, but she was dead.

Paramedic Stephen Stratton, who was one of the first emergency services on the scene, told the jury today that Emily was dead when he arrived and Turner was upset and crying.

Mr Stratton said: ''He mentioned there had been some arguments. At some point he indicated that she (Emily) tried to physically assault him, I think with her hands around his throat. He made a gesture of bringing his hands up to defend himself.

''She was kicking and punching him at one point.

''He (Turner) said: 'I should have left after this argument. She would not have died, if I had'.''

The prosecution allege that Turner strangled the business studies student and part-time Topshop assistant, and that he was a violent and jealous boyfriend, fearful she was being unfaithful.

He ''went absolutely nuts'', it is claimed, in a culmination of a month of anger and upset over his suspicions she was ''twisting his heart''.

When arrested he had his passport in his pocket and his bags packed, the court heard.

He told officers at the scene: ''I never meant to harm her, I just defended myself.'' He then made no comment in police interviews.

Computers seized from the home had Google searches for ''Death by strangulation'' and ''How to get out of being charged for murder''.

Police bugged the £350,000 family home and recorded Turner's parents Leigh Turner, 54, and Anita Turner, 51, ''fabricating evidence'' and being worried about lying to the police.

Leigh Turner, who runs a jewellery shop he son works in part-time, is alleged to have destroyed with bleach a letter it was said his son had written saying he killed her.

Anita Turner took away a coat from the scene of the death, it is also alleged.

They both deny perverting the course of justice.

Emily was born in Britain but her family had emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, when she was nine. She had returned to live with her grandparents in Bournemouth, to study when she died.

Turner had suspected a month before the alleged murder that Emily had been unfaithful when she had returned to Auckland in New Zealand to visit her parents, the court has heard.

Turner also denies perverting the course of justice.

He is also accused, together with his parents, of perverting the course of justice. All three deny the charges.

Proceeding