Jury shown video of accused murderer changing clothes after colleague's death

A jury has been shown CCTV footage of a lab worker accused of murdering his colleague changing clothes and dumping items into a bin beside his victim’s car.

Ross McCullum, 30, admitted the manslaughter of his 23-year-old colleague Megan Newborough, however he denies murdering her in the living room of his parent's house in Leicestershire.

Miss Newborough, a human resources specialist, was strangled within 40 minutes of her arrival at McCullum's home, where he is alleged to have cut her throat, prosectors believe.

McCullum, of Windsor Close, Coalville, then used her Citroen C3 to dump her body in a country lane.

Today, Leicester Crown Court heard McCullum and Miss Newborough, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, had been in a "relationship of sorts" for a matter of weeks.

The pair are thought to have met through their employer Ibstock - a brick-making firm.

Prosecutor John Cammegh KC told jurors a doorbell camera had filmed Miss Newborough leaving her home at 7.32pm on 6 August last year before heading to McCullum's house.

A phone message was heard indicating Miss Newborough had arrived at McCullum’s cul-de-sac at 8.08pm.

After the doorbell footage was shown to the jury, Mr Cammegh said in the second day of the trial: "The Crown’s case is that by 8.49pm Megan was dead.

"At some time between 20.08 and 20.49 the defendant strangled her in the front room.

"The defence, as I indicated yesterday, may deploy evidence that his mindset was such that he was incapable of forming the necessary criminal intent to murder Megan Newborough.

"But the Crown’s case is that by following the evidential trail you will conclude that, from the moment that he attacked Megan, the calculated decisions that the defendant methodically executed will expose that defence as a cynical lie, manufactured to save himself by distracting you from the truth."

The court heard McCullum had sent a text to his parents at 8:49pm – four minutes before he sent a message to Megan’s phone to make it appear that she had left his home "alive and well".

McCullum is alleged to have "dragged or carried" Miss Newborough's body into the front passenger seat of her car and threw her phone into undergrowth shortly after 9pm.

After disposing of the body, McCullum is then alleged to have "resurfaced" when the Citroen was caught on camera at 9.47pm, three minutes before he parked up at the Loughborough College campus.

Eight minutes of CCTV footage from the college was then described to the jury.

Mr Cammegh begin: "At 21.52, the defendant emerges from the Citroen and reaches back into the front.

"He then moves to the rear door, removes an item or items and places them on the ground.

"At 21.53 he removes his top and replaces it with the one that he has brought with him specifically for the purpose of changing clothes – for the cover-up."

He continued: "You might think this indicates not only that the defendant was in full control of what he was doing at this point, cleaning up, getting rid of the evidence.

"It is also, we say, clear evidence of his calculated planning from the very start."

The Crown’s opening speech continues on Thursday.