THE man accused of murdering Heather Barnett bought a bus ticket on the morning of her death and “quite deliberately put it forward as a false alibi”, Winchester Crown Court has heard.

Danilo Restivo told police he left home at 8.10am or 8.20am on the morning of November 12, 2002, and bought the ticket at 8.44am in Richmond Park Road and caught a bus to Nacro in Wallisdown Road.

Michael Bowes QC, prosecuting, said it did not establish any more than that Restivo had purchased a ticket.

He said Restivo, 39, could have bought it and got straight off the bus or got off at the next stop in Alma Road.

In either event, the walk back to Heather Barnett’s flat would only have taken a matter of minutes.

Mr Bowes told the jury yesterday they would hear evidence of CCTV footage of a man crossing Charminster Road at 9.24am which one witness, shop worker Claire George, would identify as Restivo.

“We say he was back at Heather’s by 8.55am, murdered and mutilated her, changed clothes and was back on Charminster Road by 9.24am”, said Mr Bowes.

The prosecution say Restivo then went onto Nacro, where he was on a training course, to carry on as though it were a normal day.

Mr Bowes said evidence would show that a particular computer at Nacro had not been used between 9.09am and 10.10am even though Restivo had claimed in a police interview he had arrived at 9am and logged on straight away.

Mr Bowes added: “What did or did not happen on the computer is absolutely critical to his alibi.

“Analysis of the computer’s hard drive completely destroys Restivo’s version of events as to when he used it.”

Heather’s body was discovered by her two children Terry, then 14, and Caitlin, then 11, in their ground floor flat in Capstone Road, Charminster, on November 12, 2002.

She suffered multiple head injuries and her body was mutilated. Someone else’s cut head hair was placed in her right hand.

Italian national Restivo, of Chatsworth Road, denies murdering Heather Barnett.

The trial continues.