Three Deny Geoffrey Reed Murder

Three Dorset men beat a convicted child rapist to death and then one of the alleged attackers boasted ''there's one more paedo off the street'', a court has heard.

Geoffrey Reed, 57, was hit with an object like a hammer and then stamped and kicked on in his ground floor flat in Bournemouth by half brothers Stuart and Lee Wareham and Benjamin Walter, 22, the prosecution claim.

Frail Mr Reed, who has allowed the men to stay or visit his flat, suffered ''enormous injuries'' with fractures to his head, ribs and sternum and a broken neck, Winchester Crown Court was told.

Tim Mousley QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Stuart Wareham had found some paperwork detailing that Reed had served 10 years for four counts of rape on two vulnerable victims - one of them a child - after the men had met in a bail hostel.

The prosecution allege that this was a motive in the murder and that the men wanted Reed's benefits as they thought he was about to receive £220 but when he died he only had £2.56.

''This, we say, as well as trying to steal whatever money Mr Reed had, was a motive for killing him - the fact he was a sexual offender,'' the barrister said.

Mr Mousley claimed that the men launched the fatal attack on June 7 last year and the trio put eight-stone Reed in a suitcase that the jury saw 26-year-old Stuart Wareham on CCTV carry one handed out of the flat.

Stuart Wareham then asked his sister to drive them to their grandmother's house in Lytchett Matravers - 13 miles away - and said there was a dead dog in the suitcase he wanted to bury there, the court heard.

Meanwhile Lee Wareham, 33, left the house with several bags. The prosecution allege he dumped Reed's clothes while the men buried him in a shallow grave.

The men, all from Bournemouth, deny murder. The trial is expected to last four weeks.