Neasden murder: Accused claims Agnes Akom ‘poisoned’ him with iced coffee

Romanian Necolai Paizan allegedly battered Agnes Akom repeatedly over the head with a jigsaw power tool at the converted residence in Brent on May 9 last year.

It is claimed he then buried her body in a pit, hidden under a pile of logs and branches, at Neasden Recreation Ground in Brent.

Agnes Akom is missing from Cricklewood and last seen wearing her faux fur white coat pictured (Image: Met Police)

Ms Akom, of Cricklewood, was discovered on June 14 last year - a week before her 21st birthday, and over a month since she was reported missing on May 11.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey today (July 13), Paizan told jurors that he had met Hungarian Ms Akom, who was also known as Dora, in an Asda carpark about a year-and-a-half before her death.

They met 54 times in 12 months, and during that time she would strip naked, dance, play games and tell him stories about other men she had “relationships” with, the court was told.

He said she would ask him for money “insistently” and, on the day of her death, they met so he could give her an outstanding £20.

They drove to the container and sat in his car for 18 minutes before going inside.

The defendant, a concrete mixer driver, said: “She was doing something on her phone.

“I started to feel a bit unwell, my mouth was dry, and I was not feeling right. I realised that I had been poisoned, drugged.

“I believe it was from the iced coffee – she drank some of it and then she handed it to me and said ‘You drink it, I’ve had enough’.

Paizan said Ms Akom, who worked for a coffin maker, drank iced coffee regularly.

As he headed into the container in search of more cash to give her, he felt “sick from the stomach”, he told the court.

He went on: “All of a sudden I felt like a wave of darkness and I could not walk. I sat down in the first room.”

Asked what was the next thing he remembered, he said: “I stood up. I went into the second part of the container where the bed is. It seemed to me that she was undressed and I fell down.”

“I was not thinking straight. Through feeling rather than awareness I feel that someone was pushing a bottle of some liquid into my mouth.

“When I opened my eyes I saw, or more like felt, her pushing something into my mouth and because of the pain instinctively I pushed her away and two of my front teeth ended up broken.

“I got out because I needed air. Because I did not know what was happening to me I did not even know my name. It was like a sort of amnesia.”

By then he was feeling “very unwell” and had no recollection of what happened to Ms Akom and was unaware there was blood on his arm, he told the jury.

“I washed my face to help myself to come to because my brain was blurred, I did not know who I was, what my name was, my head was not functioning right,” he said.

Describing the scene when he returned to the container, Paizan said: “There was Agnes curled up in a ball, head down.

“I got scared and I entered a state of panic. What was going on? What had happened? How did she end up like this? I cannot say what happened.”

Asked why he did not seek medical help, he said: “I think I realised there was no life left in her, the poor little thing, and I was in such a state of panic. I did not know what to do, how to go about things.”

Paizan said he was afraid to call the police, fearing they would not believe him.

Instead, he told jurors: “I tried to take her to the park, put her in a good place.”

Paizan, of Kensington, west London, denies murder and the trial continues.