Becky Watts' last text to boyfriend: 'I love you so much'

WARNING: Some readers may find the contents of this article upsetting

The last text murdered Becky Watts ever sent was to her boyfriend telling him: "I love you so much".

Giving evidence, he told Bristol Crown Court he was asleep on the night of February 18 so did not reply.

Becky vanished from her family home the next day and was reported missing. Her remains were discovered at a house 10 miles away nearly two weeks later.

Nathan Matthews, her step-brother, and his girlfriend Shauna Hoare, are on trial accused of her murder.

Prosecutors allege the pair embarked on a sexually motivated plan to kidnap and murder Becky.

Jurors heard the schoolgirl was strangled in her bedroom by Matthews who wanted to "teach her a lesson because she was treating his mother badly".

Her body was later cut up with a knife and power saw and stored in a shed, the court was told.

Matthews admits killing the 16-year-old but claims it was manslaughter.

He denies Hoare had any involvement but the prosecution say it is a "ridiculous concept" that she was in "blissful ignorance" of what her boyfriend had done.

He told police after his arrest that he alone packed Becky's body into the boot of his car without his girlfriend knowing.

The couple then drove home - with a child in the vehicle - and when Hoare had gone to bed, Matthews claims he took the body from the car into their house.

A neighbour of the couple told the court she heard lots of noise coming from the flat the day after Becky disappeared.

She said: "There was lots of running up and down the stairs very quickly, banging, slamming doors, scraping, furniture being moved, a suitcase being rolled across a wooden floor.

"It sounded like the bed was being lifted across the floor, like something heavy was being dragged.

"It was unusual, we never heard anything from them."

The trial continues.