DESPERATE crack cocaine addict Nicky Robinson battered teenager Kylee Dibble to death in an argument over drugs money and torched her body to cover his tracks, Bristol Crown Court heard.

The court was told 18-year-old Kylee, who had spent a weekend partying with friends, must have let Robinson into her fourth-floor council flat at Corbett House, Barton Hill, early on a Monday morning in 2005.

It is claimed, however, that possibly after they had sex, they clashed over Robinson's need to fund a fix, and he attacked her – battering her over the head and setting a fire, which left her body unrecognisable.

Robinson, 24, who was living with his cousin at the flats at the time, denies murder.

Richard Smith, QC, prosecuting, said Kylee was into the Bristol dance and music scene, loved to socialise and was found to have taken ecstasy before she died.

He said: "Nicky Robinson, often known as Nixon, was a similar sort of age to Kylee, and in some ways he had a not dissimilar lifestyle. Back in 2005, he was a regular user of drugs; more particularly and significantly, he was probably addicted to crack cocaine.

"That dependency on crack cocaine dominated his life at the time in many ways."

Mr Smith said, at the time, Kylee worked at Club UK in Stokes Croft and on Friday, February 25, 2005, continued socialising at her flat with Tyson Davies, Lee Pearce and Joe Brumfield. Mr Smith said the men left around 10am the next day and Kylee visited her mother before going to work again at Club UK that night.

After work on the Saturday, the court heard, Kylee went to the Lakota club, where she met Julian Watt and returned to her flat and slept with him.

On the Sunday, Mr Smith said, Kylee went to a shop to buy condoms and, when she returned to her flat, she had sex with another man, called Norman Watson.

The court heard that, later on that Sunday, Jay Garney and some of his friends arrived at the flat to use it for rap practice, and Kylee visited her mother.

The jury was told Robinson spent that weekend partying at the Three Horseshoes pub in Church Road, St George, which was having a closing-down bash.

Mr Smith said telephone records showed Kylee returned home safely to her flat on the Sunday evening, but a CCTV camera mounted near the tower block revealed that a chink of light appeared in her lounge window around 6.10am on the Monday morning, and a neighbour heard raised voices coming from the flat.

It is claimed that, after letting Robinson in – whom she had known after seeing him around the block – they may have had sex before his craving for a drugs fix took over him and he assaulted her in an attempt to get drugs money before setting a fire in her lounge.

The court heard, even though Kylee was slim, 5ft 6in tall and weighed only six and a half stone, she was a feisty young teenager who may well have "had a go" at her attacker.

It is claimed that, after leaving the flat, Robinson went to score his drugs before visiting a friend, Jeff Ford, in nearby Bethel Road around noon on Monday, where talk of the Barton Hill fire prompted him to drop his defences.

It is alleged he told Mr Ford he would be found out because he had clothes left there.

Mr Smith said Robinson also claimed a scratch on his face was caused by him having a fight with a man, but that was just a lie.

When police interviewed Robinson in June 2005 and April 2006, he said he had not gone to Kylee's flat that morning, the court heard. However, in December 2006, he told police he had gone to the flat and, by April last year, he said he had gone there on the Monday morning but he had left Kylee alive and well.

The court heard Robinson's friend Mr Ford later told police about what Robinson had said to him, and Robinson attacked him when they were in prison together, with a snooker ball and a sock.

He has admitted to actual bodily harm on Mr Ford in what the Crown says was a revenge attack.

The case continues at Bristol Crown Court.