Sex killing trial told of suicide attempt

One of the alleged killers of nine-year-old Daniel Handley tried to commit suicide after being accused of the schoolboy's murder, an Old Bailey court heard yesterday.

Brett Tyler, 30, said he had attempted to overdose, cut his wrists and made a noose to try and hang himself after police flew to the Philippines to see him. He was living 200 kilometres outside Manila on the edge of the jungle in a mixed household, which included children. He had fled there with Timothy Morss after Daniel's body was found buried in woodland near Bristol, it is alleged. Morss, 33, admits strangling the boy, but Tyler denies murder.

When told by a detective that police suspected him and thought the crime was tearing him up inside, Tyler broke down in tears and confessed to strangling Daniel with Morss, the court heard. He gave graphic details of the abduction, abuse and killing of Daniel on a video recording made by the officers in the Philippines.

Jurors became so distressed as they watched Tyler telling police how he and Morss abducted Daniel, who was riding his bike near his home in Beckton, east London, that the judge stopped proceedings for a short while.

Daniel was buggered by both men, driven along the M4 to a lay-by where he was strangled with a knotted rope, and then buried in woods on a golf course near Bristol, the prosecution claim. Tyler told police in an interview in England that his feelings had been a mixture of fear of being caught and "excitement that we might get away with it".

Tyler said that Morss had put the rope around Daniel's neck with the knot at his throat. "He could not do it. He gave me a piece of the rope and told me to pull. I said I could not. He said I'd got to, so I started pulling it. I kept telling him I was sorry until he was dead."

Tyler later retracted his confession and denied he took part in strangling Daniel. But he has admitted buggering the boy and falsely imprisoning him - as has Morss.

The case continues.