A criminology student on trial for the murder of a woman on a Bournemouth beach was asked by his university lecturer: “You’re not planning a murder, are you?”, a jury has heard.
Nasen Saadi, from Croydon, south London, is accused of the murder of Amie Gray, 34, and the attempted murder of Leanne Miles on Durley Chine Beach in Dorset on 24 May 2024.
Opening the prosecution’s case, Sarah Jones KC told jurors how Saadi, 20, was a student at Greenwich University in London.
Court sketch of Nasen Saadi. Pic: PA
She described how he would ask lecturers questions about self-defence for murder and how long DNA stays behind.
When asked by one of his lecturers: “You’re not planning a murder are you?” he did not reply.
Winchester Crown Court heard how personal trainer Ms Gray and Ms Miles, who was 38 at the time, were attacked while sitting beside a fire on the moonlit beach shortly before midnight.
Ms Jones said: “Perhaps he wanted to know what it would be like to make women feel afraid? Perhaps he thought it would make him feel powerful, make him interesting to others?
“Perhaps he just couldn’t bear to see people engaged in a happy normal social interaction and he decided to lash out, to hurt, to butcher?
“With purpose, slowly, stealthily, and quietly, when he thought no one would observe him, he hovered at the edges of the promenade, then stepped onto the sand, and walked directly towards the two women with a knife in his hand.”
Amie Gray. Pic: Dorset Police
Ms Jones added: “In an act horrifying in its savagery and in its randomness, he stabbed them both multiple times, chasing after them as they tried to escape or divert him from the other and he continued his attack.
“He left them on the sand to bleed to death whilst he moved away and tried to disappear back into the shadows, away from the glare of the streetlights or the moonlight and back into anonymity.”
‘Murder accused saw slasher movie’
The jury also heard how in the days leading up to the attack, Saadi had gone to a cinema to watch The Strangers: Chapter 1, described by the prosecutor as a slasher movie where the male and female leads both get stabbed.
Ms Jones said: “It suggests doesn’t it, that the defendant gravitated to what he likes to watch or sought inspiration or encouragement from what he saw.”
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The prosecution said Saadi also did online research about knives which he then bought, and also looked at the murder of Brianna Ghey and her killers.
She added: “In March he researched ‘why is it harder for a killer to be caught if he does it in another town’, the merits of one weapon over another – swords or daggers over knives or ‘which is the deadliest knife’?”
The barrister said Saadi also researched Bournemouth Beach and how many people visited, and whether it was open at night as well as about which hotels accepted cash payment and did not have CCTV cameras.
Ms Jones said that on each of the evenings that he stayed in Bournemouth, Saadi walked at night along the promenade to Durley Chine for what she described as a “recce” of the area.
The prosecutor added that a search of the defendant’s home by police found a number of knives, which showed his “fascination” with them, as well as latex gloves, a torch and a black balaclava.
Saadi, who has pleaded guilty to failing to provide his mobile phone code to police, denies the charges and the trial continues.
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