Traveller murdered for rejecting gay advance, court told
A man accused of murdering a traveller has denied killing him after a failed sexual advance.
Christopher Nudds, 26, who is gay, told Northampton Crown Court that he didn’t try anything on with him. Prosecutor William Harbage QC asked him if he made a move on the victim, Mr Nudds said: “Absolutely not, Fred wasn’t gay, was he?”
His barrister denied “absolutely” Mr Harbage’s suggestion that Fred Moss reacted badly when he tried it on with him.
Mr Nudds said the last time he saw his friend was when he acted as a look out for him during a drug deal. He said he didn’t see Mr Moss after watching him get into a Mercedes with three other men.
The defendant said he chose not to tell the family of the 21 year old what he had seen because he did not want to implicate himself in the drugs deal. He later contacted the brother, Len, claiming to have stumbled across the van by chance.
He also admitted his statement to police about the van contained lies because he didn’t want to incriminate himself over any drugs.
The prosecution said blood matching Fred’s Moss’s DNA was in the defendant’s car boot and on a knife and hacksaw belonging to him. Mr Nudds’ said a dog bit Fred’s hand when they were out together in his Range Rover once and he had shown Fred how to butcher a stag which could explain Fred’s DNA on a hacksaw.
CCTV footage of his Range Rover in convoy with Mr Moss’s van was also taken as they approached the drugs sale meeting, he claimed.
Fred Moss’s dismembered body was found in a remote countryside spot in the countryside after he disappeared at the end of November 2004.
Christopher Nudds denies the murder.
The case continues.
