Suspect seen running from burning murder flat ‘wasn’t bothered’

A man seen running from a blazing flat where two French students were murdered was "not bothered" when a neighbour saw him, a court heard today.

Curtis Cronin told the Old Bailey that after hearing an explosion at the bedsit he challenged the man saying, "I've got you" — meaning he had seen his face.

Mr Cronin said: "He responded quite casually, Yeah, yeah'. He did not seem that bothered. He seemed rather blasé." The witness was giving evidence behind a screen at the murder trial of Dano Sonnex, 23, and Nigel Farmer, 34.

They are alleged to have tortured student Laurent Bonomo and friend Gabriel Ferez for their bank card Pins, stabbing them hundreds of times in a three-hour "orgy of bloodletting".

Farmer, of no fixed address, admits returning to the flat in New Cross hours after the burglary in June last year to set fire to it, but claims he was forced to do it by Sonnex.

Jurors have been told firefighters found the bodies of the two French students, both 23, in a scene of "almost unimaginable horror". Mr Cronin said he and his wife Fiona were at home when they heard a "large explosion". "I saw a man running away from the scene of the explosion. As the man was running away from the scene, I called to him suggesting I've got you', pretty much I have seen you'." Mr Cronin has helped produce an e-fit of the man, who he said was slim, white and about 6ft.

Mr Cronin said he rushed out in his bare feet to try to douse the flames, but could not see inside the flat as there was "too much smoke".

Sonnex, of Peckham, has admitted burglary. Both men deny murder, false imprisonment and arson. Farmer also denies burglary. The trial continues.