A drug addict battered Bristol teenager Kylee Dibble to death in a row over drugs money and then torched her body, a court heard.

Nicky Robinson is said to have raided Miss Dibble's piggy bank for money to buy drugs before beating her to death and setting fire to her property in an attempt to cover his tracks.

Miss Dibble's charred remains were later found in the flat in Barton Hill, Bristol, on February 28 2005.

Unemployed crack cocaine addict Robinson, 24, of Tyler Street, The Dings, denied her murder at the start of a retrial at Bristol Crown Court yesterday. The first trial was adjourned in April after a jury failed to reach a verdict.

Miss Dibble, 18, who worked in a nightclub, had been having casual sex with the defendant for a few weeks after they met in the laundry room of the block of flats where Robinson was staying with his cousin at the time.

She let him into her flat at around 6am that Monday morning.

Her body was found by firefighters called to the blaze two and a half hours later.

She had received fatal blows to the head and there were spots of blood on the floor and wall.

Richard Smith QC, prosecuting, told the court that the pair had had sex but what happened after that no-one will ever really know.

"By the time the defendant came to leave, his mind had already turned to drugs and the necessity to purchase more drugs became his preoccupation," he said.

"He perhaps wanted to be given money from Kylee or take items from her flat and perhaps she became resistant.

"Her piggy bank was found smashed into many pieces."

It is alleged that after setting fire to items around Miss Dibble's body Robinson fled the block of flats.

Mr Smith said Robinson then went to a flat in nearby St George to see Geoffrey Ford, a friend of 10 years and fellow drug addict. It was here, claims the prosecution, that Robinson let his composure slip which alarmed Mr Ford.

"When Mr Ford said to the defendant you have a scratch on your face, he said that he had had a fight with a man. That was a lie," Mr Smith said.

"Nicky Robinson thought that Mr Ford would be one of the last people to go to the police but he did and when Mr Robinson came to know that it was Mr Ford, he sought revenge."

Robinson was arrested in April 2007 after being interviewed three times by police, who in the course of their two-and-a-half-year investigation arrested and released 10 other people.

In June 2007, Mr Ford was sent to the same prison where Robinson was being held on remand.

The jury at Bristol heard yesterday that Robinson admits causing actual bodily harm to Mr Ford by putting a snooker ball in a sock and hitting him over the head.

The trial continues.