A JURY was due to retire this morning to consider its verdict in the trial of a Southbourne man accused of raping and murdering his ex-girlfriend.

Judge Guy Boney QC yesterday finished summing up the four-week trial of Alan Pickersgill for the 12 Winchester Crown Court jurors.

They had previously heard the prosecution allege that Pickersgill, 37, had become disturbingly obsessed with his ex Julie Bywater after she ended their brief relationship.

The popular teaching assistant, 32, was found strangled her to death with a plastic cable tie at Pickersgill’s Wayside Road flat on the night of May 4 last year.

Pickersgill, a former carpenter with Sunseeker, denies the rape and murder of Ms Bywater.

Judge Boney yesterday recounted Pickersgill’s evidence, describing how the defendant had claimed Ms Bywater died as the result of a bondage sex game gone wrong.

The jury was reminded how Pickersgill had stolen Ms Bywater’s sat-nav and fitted a tracker to her car as he was suspicious of her seeing other men.

But Judge Boney said the defendant had said he was “not jealous” but that he also admitted there might have been a “small amount of obsession”.

The judge told jurors Pickersgill had said he was in love with Ms Bywater and that he was convinced they were still in a relationship at the time she died.

However, an answering machine message from Ms Bywater had suggested “things weren’t going to work” between them, said Judge Boney.