Racial taunts behind 'perfect crime'

Robyn van Lill sat in stunned silence as a prosecutor lifted the veil on the ghastly events behind the disappearance of her only child.

The man on trial for allegedly murdering her son, Donavan, a South African expat in the UK, had confessed to being "ultra, ultra-confident that the police would not find anything".

Shocking details emerged in the Bristol Crown Court about racist jibes, drug-taking and the warped mental state of Martin Sugden, 42 - who allegedly penned a macabre plan to carry out the ultimate act of revenge.

Robyn, from Durban, once regarded Sugden as a close friend of her 29-year-old son. But this week she saw a darker side to the man.

Van Lill, a fitness instructor and father of two, went missing from his flat in Chippenham, north of London, in the early hours of March 3 2010, leaving behind his car, wallet, cellphone and passport.

Sugden was arrested after police learnt he had told a friend, Jerard McKay, that he had killed Van Lill and had dismembered, burnt and crushed his corpse.

A raid on Sugden's parents' home unearthed a notebook titled "Begin Again", which outlined his views of the world and the plan to murder Van Lill without leaving a trace.

The UK Press Association reports that prosecutor Christopher Parker, QC, told jurors in the Bristol Crown Court on Wednesday: "We suggest that Martin Sugden killed Donavan van Lill as an act of late retribution, revenge, which came from a sense of restorative justice. He thought he was completely safe from detection and the perfect crime he had committed.

"(It was) his views on how the world should be ordered and how people who do unjust things should be punished by people who would be Knight Priests of Good."

The jury listened as Parker read out notes from the book. They included: "Pick him up with all his stuff. Take him to a container and check weapon."

Several items were listed in the book, including a fork, spade, shotgun, cleaver, bullets, two types of hammers, poncho, bags to line car seats, tape, a bucket and lime.

Parker described it as "a rudimentary shopping list or planning list" for the murder.

A devastated Robyn van Lill told the Sunday Times she hoped the trial would provide her with answers.

"All I want is to find my son's body and to lay him to rest. This is very, very difficult for me, and I'm trying to cope as best as I can."

She hoped that police, who have scoured the city of Bristol for the past year, would eventually find the body. Sugden worked with Van Lill at the Olympiad Leisure Centre. They enjoyed a three-week surfing holiday with another friend, Mark Rogers, in Durban in 2006, according to the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald.

The court heard that Sugden, a swimming instructor and former paratrooper, planned the murder after being on the receiving end of racial taunts by Van Lill.

On Thursday in court, Robyn recalled asking her son and Rogers to stop making fun of Sugden during their Durban trip after he had a relationship with a black woman identified as "Nolly".

Rogers said he witnessed Van Lill calling black people "k******" and said they had filmed a black man being assaulted outside a Durban nightclub and laughed. Sugden tried to help the victim, and Rogers and Van Lill teased him about it.

On Thursday, Sugden broke down in tears in the dock.

The court heard that, in another notebook found by police, Sugden had listed several potential targets, including supporters of the Conservative Party, PR gurus and writers for the Daily Mail and Daily Express.

Corsham rugby captain Steven Bailey gave the court a statement describing Van Lill as well-liked, but occasionally arrogant and a "ladies' man".

"I saw Donavan punch a teammate after he found out he had slept with his ex-wife, Vicky," he said.

The Swindon Advertiser reports that Bailey said Van Lill had occasionally used cocaine.