A MAN alleged to have murdered law student Janet Murgatroyd confessed in letters to his family that he thought he had killed her, a court was told.

Andrew Greenwood wrote a series of letters from Preston Prison shortly after his arrest in August 1999, following his voluntary confession to the police that he had battered the daughter of a former Chorley FC chairman and thrown her body into the River Ribble.

A jury at Liverpool Crown Court heard that in one letter he wrote: "Everything is starting to get blurry, maybe still self-denial. I cannot get story straight at the moment, maybe it's the medication. I probably have done it in a blackout."

In an earlier letter Greenwood, now 29, wrote: "I feel worse knowing I killed two people because the guy who found her in the river committed suicide."

Greenwood, of Sephton Street, Lostock Hall, has pleaded not guilty to murder. He claims he wrongly convinced himself he had killed her and obtained the information from press cuttings and BBC TV's Crimewatch programme.

The naked body of Janet, a law student and part-time clerk, was found floating face down in the river at Preston on June 16, 1996, about 12 hours after she disappeared while walking home alone across the Penwortham Bridge.

(Proceeding)