Benjamin Atkins, 49 and Debbie Pereira, 39, are accused of murdering and dismembering their friend (Picture: BNPS)
A man accused of murdering and dismembering the body of a friend told his girlfriend he would ‘do it again and again and again’, a court has heard.
Benjamin Atkins, 49, told Debbie Pereira, 39, he would ‘kill, decapitate, and eat the f******’ if he is freed.
The pair, from Bournemouth, Dorset, are on trial for the murder of Simon Shotton.
The 48-year-old’s legs were found all rotted in packages on the Manor Steps Zig Zag footpath on Boscombe seafront in August 2023.
Atkins is alleged to have confided in his partner that if he ‘told his solicitor that if he admitted that he cooked Simon’s head up and ate his cheeks, would it get me off the hook?’
Winchester Crown Court heard that after the couple were arrested, they had been covertly recorded in the back of a police van bragging about the killing.
Remains of the victim were found in their property (Picture: Facebook)
But both deny Mr Shotton’s murder. Atkins and Pereira are also charged with preventing the lawful burial of a corpse and perverting the course of justice.
Paul Cavin KC, prosecuting, told the jury that a member of the public was taking shelter under a tree on the cliffside footpath when a package landed with a ‘thud’ beside her.
When she got closer to the rotting-smelling packet which was wrapped with grey masking tape, she ‘realised that the shape was that of a human foot and some of it had become exposed’.
Police then discovered a second package that contained a second leg – DNA tests showed that they both belonged to Mr Shotton.
Mr Cavin said that the dismembered legs were examined by a pathologist who found ‘they had not been done surgically, they had been removed mid-thigh, they hadn’t been removed by a surgeon, this was an amateur’s job’.
The court heard the victim had been released from jail in September 2022 having served a sentence for supplying drugs in the Ipswich area.
Police search Walpole Lane in Bournemouth (Picture: BNPS)
It was then discovered that he had moved to Bournemouth after his release and his mobile phone was traced to a Cash Creators shop in Boscombe and that it had been sold to them by Pereira.
The prosecutor said that when police raided the defendants’ home address, Atkins was seen hiding in the garden behind a wheelbarrow.
Further searches of the garden then uncovered two black bin bags containing Mr Shotton’s severed arms.
In a police interview, Pereira told detectives that Mr Shotton was a crack and heroin user and had visited their flat to take drugs with them.
She denied knowing Mr Shotton had died but admitted that he had stayed in a tent in their garden.
She said Atkins had been cutting wood and burning things including his own shoes in the fire pit, and that he had also ‘bought large black bin liners, bleach and silver tape’.
Mr Cavin said that as the pair were taken in a police van to a magistrates’ court hearing, they were recorded on a concealed listening device talking about the dismembered body parts.
He said that Pereira asked Atkins if he had hidden the legs, to which he laughed and replied: ‘I went into the garden to get rid of the f****** arms’.
Mr Cavin continued: ‘Pereira asks Atkins “Do you regret anything?”
‘Chillingly, he responds “I’ll look ’em straight in the eye and say, yeah. I’d do it again and again and again. If you let me go today, I’d find another one and do it again.”
‘”Drug dealers, and pushers. Kill, decapitate, and eat the f******.”
‘Pereira told Atkins that the police had taken “stuff from under my nails’, and he responded, ‘you’d have had nothing, the amount of bleach you used”.’
He continued: ‘Pereira also said in interview that she had asked Atkins “Did you kill him?” and that he had replied “Yeah”.
‘She also said that he had been telling her that God had told him to do it, which was not what the recording had captured.”
He said Pereira went on to say that Atkins and Mr Shotton had an argument about the deceased not having supplied them with enough drugs for allowing him to stay at their home.
The trial continues.
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