THE attack on a Nottingham student in his flat was done by a jealous, cold, sick and calculating man, prosecutors told a jury today.

Shaun Smith QC, prosecuting said the Crown's case was that David Heiss planned and executed the death of Matthew Pyke and from start to finish he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

Closing his speech to jurors at Nottingham Crown Court, Mr Smith said: "It was impossible to imagine what the last moments of Mr Pyke's life were like.

"You know that it was spent running away, bleeding from extensive injuries. You know it was spent cowering in a corner looking for his mobile phone before he was again mercilessly attacked.

"You know he tried to crawl away. You know that with his dying breath he tried to write David Heiss' name on the computer tower. You know all that but to imagine what it was like is impossible."

Finishing his speech, Mr Smith said Mr Pyke was an "obstacle" to Heiss, an obstacle to his affection.

"A solution, to borrow a word that he [Heiss] used, was to remove that obstacle. His plan from the off was to kill Matthew. It was a plan he carried out not quite perfectly, but certainly effectively. The Crown's case is that he had one intention alone and that is to kill Matthew and that is murder."

Heiss, 21, of Dauborn, near Limburg, denies 20-year-old Mr Pyke's murder at a flat in North Sherwood Street, Nottingham on Friday, September 19 last year.

It is alleged that Heiss caught a flight from Germany to the UK and stabbed Mr Pyke with a knife 86 times.

Prosecutors say he became obsessed with Mr Pyke's girlfriend, Joanna Witton, via a war games website they all used.

Heiss' declaration of love for Miss Witton were rebuffed, so he allegedly hatched a plan - with alibis, a change of clothes and fake suicide note - to kill her boyfriend.

Mr Justice Keith began his summing up to the jury this morning and asked them to look at the evidence dispassionately.

Proceeding