Two former BMW employees have denied murdering a fellow employee at his Oxford home.

Graeme Faulkner and Martin Cooper appeared at Oxford Crown Court yesterday jointly charged with murdering Christopher Butt, who was found dead in his top-floor flat in Cowley on November 11 last year.

The 48-year-old, who was the son of former Abingdon mayor Dr Vernon Butt, was found by police, who forced their way into his Beauchamp Place home.

The alarm had been raised when Mr Butt failed to turn up for his father's birthday meal.

The Oxford United fan, who was a keen birdwatcher and member of North Oxford Tennis Club, was found dead on his bed with a pillow covering his mouth. He is thought to have been strangled with an electric cord and a belt.

The defendants are also accused of robbing Mr Butt of a camera, a credit card and a Comet store card.

Faulkner, 27, of Banbury Road, Oxford, is also charged with manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty on all three counts.

Cooper 31, of Dane Valley Road, Margate, Kent, pleaded guilty to robbery, but has denied murder. The jury was told he had admitted manslaughter. The judge agreed Cooper could leave court while evidence was given as he was too traumatised.

The court heard the defendants were arrested after a huge police operation, which tracked their movements to the continent in the days after the murder.

After killing Mr Butt, the pair are said to have embarked on a spending spree which included buying a mini-disc player and repeatedly withdrawing hundreds of pounds from cash machines across the country, before going on holiday to Holland and France.

Credit card transactions showed the stolen card was used on several occasions in Oxford, London, Bournemouth, Margate in Kent, Crawley in West Sussex and then Calais in France, Amsterdam and other parts of Holland.

The pair were arrested when they returned from Calais by ferry to Dover in December. Christopher Clark, prosecuting, said Mr Butt, who had worked as a line feeder at the Cowley car plant for 13 years, had been "deliberately and brutally killed in his flat" on Friday, November 9.

Both defendants gave several differing accounts of what happened during initial police interviews the court heard.

In one account Cooper told police how he had tried to apologise to Mr Butt but became angry and grabbed him by the throat and marched him to the his bed-sitting room. He claimed he did not intend to kill Mr Butt.

Cooper told police: "It all went horribly wrong. The purpose of putting the cord and belt around his neck was to make Chris give us money and information, in particular the PIN number to the card."

Faulkner claimed he was not in the flat when Mr Butt was killed, but met Cooper later in Florence Park.

The trial continues.