Accused vicar killer was 'sexually abused'

Christopher Hunnisett was just 17 when he is alleged to have murdered the Rev Ronald Glazebrook, 81, at the house they shared in Coventry Road, St Leonards, in April 2001.

He denied drowning the vicar in the bath as his retrial began at Lewes Crown Court on Tuesday.

The vicar took Hunnisett in and treated him like a "godson", the court heard, but their relationship broke down.

Rev Glazebrook's head was found in a sports bag behind Summerfields leisure centre while his torso was dumped by the A259 near Eastbourne.

Hunnisett, now 26, was found guilty of the murder in 2002 and jailed for a minimum of 11 years, but in March the Court Of Appeal quashed his conviction.

Philip Katz QC, prosecuting, said Hunnisett's defence were now trying to introduce a "wholly unlikely story" about the vicar sexually abusing the defendant.

He said: "Throughout the entirety of the first trial in 2002 this defendant specifically denied that there was anything sexual about his relationship with the Rev Glazebrook.

"However, as the crown understands it, the position has changed. Now he is going to say that he was sexually abused by the Rev Glazebrook.

"His case will be that he was fending off a sexual advance by the Rev Glazebrook and struck him, causing him to fall into the bath. Sexual abuse may be a motive for murder but it is not a defence," he added.

At the original trial both Hunnisett and his friend Jason Groves, then 18, admitted preventing the proper burial of a body.

Groves took the stand this week as a witness and recalled the grisly chain of events after Hunnisett told him the vicar was dead.

Mr Groves said he helped his friend because he did not want him to get him into trouble and together they wrapped the body in an old sail.

After an initial plan to bury it at sea, they drove to the woods in the middle of the night where Hunnisett hacked up the body with an axe and a small saw, Groves said.

Although he "played mad" in police interviews, Mr Katz said Hunnisett told friends what he had done.

"The defendant has, the crown say, admitted to friends that he killed Reverend Glazebrook. He has said he did it. He said at various times that he dragged Reverend Glazebrook to the bath and killed him."

In a letter to Hunnisett's mum written just before he died, Rev Glazebrook said he could no longer look after the boy due to his increasingly violent behaviour.

Chillingly, the vicar wrote: "He tells me force is a solution to 99 per cent of life's problems."

Hunnisett denies murder and the trial continues.