A murder suspect 'confessed' his role in killing a man with severe learning difficulties, but no-one believed him, Oxford Crown Court was told yesterday.

Sean Miles, 37, was found bruised, naked and drowned in the River Thames at Sandford Lock on May 1 last year.

Edward Doyle, 34, Terry McMaster, 24, Tracey Fathers, 35, and Karen Fathers, 35, all from Alice Smith Square, Littlemore, Oxford, deny murder.

Yesterday, the trial was told eight days after Mr Miles went missing, Doyle confessed to police and McMaster's landlord, Peter McClure.

Mr McClure told the court: "He (Doyle) said they stuffed Sean into a shopping trolley wrapped in a duvet and had taken him down to the river.

"When they got to the river they put him in. He said they stripped him. I asked surely one of you could have called the police or something'. He said no-one bothered to help him."

Mr McClure told the jury that Doyle was sitting in McMaster's room speaking to a police operator on the phone saying he knew Mr Miles had been stabbed three times.

Doyle then turned to him and added all four of them were there when Mr Miles was killed, but he had nothing to do with it, Mr McClure said.

He said: "My first impression was this was a man who was confessing to murder.

"He was implicating everyone but I said you followed events, went down there and stood by and did nothing. But I didn't believe the story was true. I thought it was a lot of stupid nonsense from people who had been drinking."

Mr McClure told the court that minutes later he spoke to Karen Fathers who told him she did not know why Doyle was blaming the other three defendants.

Tracey Fathers then told him Doyle had a history of making fake complaints and confessions, he added. He said he did not believe the story because he thought all the defendants had learning disabilities.

Conroy Harris, a mental health worker from the Acorn Day Centre, told the court Mr Miles was a vulnerable and child-like man who was easily led.

Mr Harris added he occasionally saw Mr Miles, of Herschel Crescent, Littlemore, with injuries which he blamed on Doyle and described a black eye and split lip as 'horrific'.

He said: "He was too afraid to report Edward Doyle to the police because Eddie would find out and assault him again."

Lesley Young, a mental health support worker, told the trial a psychiatric study of Mr Miles in 2003 showed he could not swim and had a fear of water.

Adrian Redgrave, prosecuting, earlier told the trial Mr Miles was lured to McMaster's flat amid allegations he had touched the four-year-old son of Karen Fathers.

He told the court Mr Miles was "hit on the head, beaten with a golf club and left to drown in the Thames".

The trial continues.