THE man accused of murdering pregnant Colne teenager Kim Newson told police he did not kill her, a court heard.

A jury heard that Stephen Charles Hughes told officers investigating the disappearance of Miss Newson that he had not harmed the teenager.

Detective Constable Christopher Nowell told Lincoln Crown Court that he and a colleague, DC Stuart Fortune, interviewed Hughes on March 28 and April 25 last year.

Prosecuting counsel Sam Mainds said that at the end of the second interview, it was put to the defendant that he had killed Miss Newson.

Hughes replied: "I didn't kill Kim Newson, I didn't harm Kim Newson, I haven't murdered Kim Newson."

The court heard that Hughes was arrested on an unrelated matter on March 28, three weeks after Miss Newson went missing.

Detectives decided to question him about her disappearance after her birth certificate was found in his jacket pocket during a search of his flat in Monks Road, Lincoln.

Tests later revealed the defendant's footprint in Miss Newson's blood on the certificate.

When asked to account for this Hughes made no comment, despite being warned that a court may draw adverse inferences from his silence.

Earlier in the transcriptions, he told the officers he took the certificate after Miss Newson's father Barry Newson cleared her belongings in the days following her disappearance.

He said he had been invited to take any of the items remaining in the flat and assumed he had picked it up then, intending to give it to Mr Newson.

The jury also heard that DNA from Hughes' bathroom floor was likely to be Miss Newson's.

Hughes, 41, denies murdering the teenager between March 4 and March 29 last year.

(Proceeding)