'It's two lives ruined': Moment City of London banker told police he was 'shocked' that high-class prostitute had been battered to death with 13 blows to the head in his flat on her 29th birthday

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The banker accused of beating a high-class escort to death with a pestle told police he was 'shocked' at her injuries before failing to explain them in a mumbling police interview played to jurors in court today.

Zahid Naseem, of Amersham, Bucks, told investigators that the death of sex worker Christine Abbotts, 29, in her Crawley flat in May represented 'two lives ruined'.

He crossed his arms across his chest and refused to meet the eyes of detectives as he told them he failed to call police after thinking 'I can't see anything positive coming out of this.'

In an interview with Sussex Police Naseem, 47, was asked whether he had thought to call for help.

He replied: 'I did and I was just thinking about what happens next. 

'I did think about it, and then I thought "what the hell's going to happen next?".

'I can't see anything positive coming out of any of this.'

Pressed again he said: 'I just couldn't see what was going to happen that was going to change anything.'

Asked by detectives whether he considered calling an ambulance he admitted he did not think Ms Abbotts was alive.

Miss Abbots (pictured left) was believed to have lived a secret life as a high-class escort but told her friends and family she worked in IT. Naseem is pictured right arriving in handcuffs at Lewes Crown Court earlier this week 

In the video, played in Lewes Crown Court today, jurors heard detectives ask Naseem to 'just take in' the extent of Miss Abbotss' injuries, included 13 separate blows to her head.

Naseem sighs and shifts in his seat, looking down and away.

Asked what he has to say about that, he replies with a snort: 'Nothing, I'm just shocked, that what I have to say about that.'

When police ask him how she came to suffer those injuries, he replies: 'No. I don't know, that's why I'm shocked. There was no fight, there was no, I don't know, I just don't know.'

He said he was still trying to piece together' the night, saying he had 'no frame of reference' to help him do so, and adding: 'It's not me. 

'I'm not that person. I don't remember hitting her, I don't remember throwing her, I don't remember any of that.'

The pair were seen together on CCTV on the night Ms Abbotts died, prosecutors said

Police found the body of Miss Abbotts in a flat where she was housesitting in Crawley

Bodycam footage from Sussex Police shows Naseem 'unconscious' on the couch when they broke down the door of the flat, but police were unconvinced he was out cold, a court heard 

As Sussex Police detectives ask their suspect why, if he had 'such a good relationship' with her, he did not think of trying to get help, Naseem's head sways from side to side and his arms remain wrapped tightly around his body.

'I don't know,' he says, repeating: 'I don't know.

'Do I wish it was Thursday afternoon again? Yes. I do wish it was Thursday afternoon again. 

'Do I wish I'd never come to her flat? Yes I do. 

'I can't turn the clock back I can't change things. 

'But do I wish any of this outcome? No. It's two lives ruined - and many others as well probably.'

His interview came after police burst in to the flat where Christine Abbotts was housesitting in Crawley on May 25 this year, to find her blood-covered body naked and battered on a bed and Naseem apparently unconscious on a sofa in the next room. 

Miss Abbotts' father said he was unaware of what she did for a living

Mr Naseem, 48, of Elm Close, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, who earned £250,000 a year as a banker in the City of London, denies murdering Miss Abbotts on her birthday in May.

He says the pair had a drug and drink-fuelled night together, after which he woke to find her dead.

On Monday Lewes Crown Court heard the Christina Abbotts told friends and family she was working as an IT consultant in London but in reality she was a secretly earning £2,000 a time as a 'high-class escort'.

Using the pseudonym, Tilly Pexton, she advertised her sexual services online and clients could make contact with her through the website.

The pair had met several times before after Naseem, a father of two, had picked her out on the adult website after she described herself as a 'privately-educated' City girl.

He told friends she was 'more like a socialite than a sex worker' and claimed she was 'very posh.'

However the court heard Miss Abbotts was a university drop-out who had flitted between various jobs before being forced to move to Crawley due to the cost of living in London.

Fellow sex workers told the court she drank heavily and used a lot of cocaine and other drugs.

After a drug-fuelled night of Miss Abbotts, 29, was repeatedly beaten around the head with a kitchen pestle in a 'savage and brutal' attack in a flat.

During their search of the two-bedroom top-floor flat police found cocaine and the sex drug, amyl nitrate, as well as a blood-stained bottle of Courvoisier brandy.

The case continues.

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