Jamie Lee Warn (57) allegedly murdered 37-year-old Zsuzsanna Besenyei in 2018.
The Royal Court is expected to hear closing statements from the prosecution and defence today, before Commissioner Sir William Bailhache sums up. The jury will then retire to consider its verdict.
The prosecution claims Mr Warn killed his lover early on the evening of 10 May 2018, before putting her body into the boot of her Ford Fiesta and parking it at an underground car park in First Tower, where it stayed for three days.
It is then claimed that during the early hours of 14 May, Mr Warn drove the car to a secluded west coast bay where he dumped Miss Besenyei’s body, before abandoning the car on the beach at La Haule so that it would be submerged by the incoming tide.
During yesterday’s hearing, the court heard that Mr Warn had been ‘relaxed’ when first approached by police officers while Miss Besenyei was still considered missing, although officers did notice a cut on his nose. Mr Warn said he received the injury while sleeping on a couch overnight and falling – hitting the coffee table.
DC Matthew Coleman said: ‘I noticed an injury to the bridge of the nose, freshly scabbed over. Not bleeding but freshly scabbed. He said he got it by rolling off his son’s couch and hitting his nose on the coffee table.’
DC Joanna Lynch, who accompanied DC Coleman, said Mr Warn’s demeanour seemed ‘very nonchalant, very relaxed’. She said: ‘He had a scab on the front of his nose but nothing else remarkable.’
Mr Warn told the officers that Miss Besenyei had texted him two days previously, wanting to meet up, and he had replied on the Sunday saying that he was going to his girlfriend’s. He messaged her again after that but she said she had ‘sorted it out’.
DC Lynch said: ‘He offered no explanation to where she was. In terms of the nature of the relationship, he spoke of her as if they were good friends.’
With Mr Warn’s permission, DC Coleman took photos of texts and WhatsApp messages on the defendant’s phone. Mr Warn said he regularly deleted text messages to save his phone battery. DC Coleman said: ‘The defendant could not provide any information as to where the victim may be. He could not recall anything being said about her car or phone.’
According to a police statement taken from Mr Warn by DC Lynn Lang on 15 May 2018, which was read in court, Mr Warn said he had known Miss Besenyei for five years as they had both worked in the same hotel. He said she had moved to Jersey after meeting someone online but had an on/off relationship with that person. He added she was a ‘lovely’ person who got on with people, and that he was her shoulder to cry on and her rock. ‘She knows I was there for her,’ he said.
Mr Warn denies murder and the trial continues.
