MURDER TRIAL: Distressed man overheard girlfriend begging for her life hours before her body was found in a lay-by

The body of 34-year-old Anita Kapoor, who jurors heard worked as a prostitute, was found by a horrified truck driver stopping for a rest in a lay-by near Gerrards Cross at around 8:30am on June 23 this year.

A 34-year-old man, who was previously not known to the victim, was subsequently arrested the following day and charged with her murder.

The defendant, Navin Mohan, stood before a jury at Reading Crown Court today accused of murdering the young woman.

Prosecutor John Price told the seven male and five female jurors that Ms Kapoor's body was found amongst the undergrowth of a lay-by along the A413 Amersham Road dual carriageway between Gerrards Cross and Chalfont St Peter earlier this year.

The court heard that Ms Kapoor would often be seen walking the streets of Southall in Middlesex, near her home address, at night where she worked as a prostitute to fund a drug habit.

Her boyfriend of two years, Stanley Flanders, aged 50 years, used drugs with his 34-year-old girlfriend and made sure she always carried her phone as the couple were aware of the dangers of getting into strangers' cars.

The court heard that a month before her death, Ms Kapoor had been attacked by a client wielding a crow bar and had been dragged by her hoodie into a park on another occasion by a violent sex customer.

Mr Flanders was the last person, other than the defendant, to hear her voice as she pleaded for her life, in the early hours of June 23, it is alleged.

The court heard that after spotting Mr Flanders calling her phone, Ms Kapoor answered the device and her voice was heard pleading: "Please, please leave me. Let me go please. I won't say nothing."

It is alleged that her partner then heard the voice of "a young Asian" man saying, "watch it, you're going to kill yourself."

Mr Price told the jury that at around 4:05am on June 23, Mohan picked up Ms Kapoor on Saxon Road, Southall, in his red Nissan Micra before driving to a Sainsbury's cashpoint machine in nearby Hayes.

"The identity of the car can clearly be seen on CCTV, and bank records have been obtained which prove the machine was used at that time, 4:11am, to withdraw £30 in cash from the defendant's National Westminster bank account," Mr Price said.

"You can also very clearly see the silhouette of the passenger and the illumination of a mobile phone she is using. Phone records maintain that Ms Kapoor had indeed made a call from that location at that time."

Mr Price ran the jury through the following movements of the red Nissan, and described how CCTV cameras snapped the car driving into a deserted industrial estate compound before disappearing out of sight for 23 minutes.

He told the court that the woman had suffered internal injuries and believe she had been subjected to a serious sexual assault.

Mr Price said: "The probability is that she was anally raped by this defendant in the back seat of his car and then he killed her in that 23 minute period.

"She feared he was going to kill her to prevent her from complaining to someone else about what he had just done to her, so she had pleaded with him in a desperate attempt to save her life."

Mr Price told the jury that Mohan's Micra was caught on various CCTV cameras and Automatic Number Plate Recognition Cameras, having travelled directly from the scene of the murder to the lay-by where the body was dumped.

"He knew this route because he had driven it before during previous employment, so was able to go there directly without even having to look for an alternative place to dump the body," Mr Price said.

Following Mohan's arrest on June 24, forensic investigators went through his car with a fine-tooth comb and found a number of hairs and bloodstains which matched with Ms Kapoor's DNA profile, the court heard.

Mohan, of Quaker Lane, Southall, denied murdering Ms Kapoor at a previous hearing.

The trial continues.