MARTIN Sugden needed to be a criminal mastermind to have successfully pulled off the murder of missing Corsham rugby player Donavan Van Lill a court heard today.

The Stanton St Quintin swimming instructor, 42, is accused of murdering his Olympiad Leisure Centre colleague Mr Van Lill, 29, who disappeared on March 3 last year and admitting the crime to friend Jerard McKay.

Defence counsel Ignatius Hughes QC said according to the prosecution Sugden would have to have been the Professor Moriarty of Chippenham.

He said: “Apparently Martin Sugden is not just a murderer, he is a criminal genius.”

He said if the prosecution were correct Sugden would have had to lure Mr Van Lill undetected from his home in Blackthorn Mews, Pewsham, kill him and partially hide or dismember the body by 11am when he helped unload an unannounced delivery of gas bottles to his parents farm at Stanton St Quintin on March 3, 2010.

Mr Hughes said: “At this time, says the prosecution, he should have looked like a butcher.”

Mr Hughes added that later that day Sugden spoke with another visitor to the farm who wanted to exchange eggs for gas bottles as well as two men who were delivering Dentons tradesmen directories.

He said: “He had committed the perfect crime.

“He was the Professor Moriarty of Chippenham.

“But apparently he isn’t very clever, he is stupid according to the prosecution because he confessed the murder to Jerard McKay.”

He added that Mr McKay told the court the reason Sugden confessed was so that Mr McKay wouldn’t get a shock when he saw the missing person posters which had been put up around Chippenham by Mr Van Lill’s friends.

Mr Hughes said: “I would think he would have got quite a shock when he told him he had killed him and chopped up the body.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

Mr Hughes also brought into question the reliability of the evidence given by Mr McKay and his friend Grant Wells.

Mr McKay told the court Sugden explained to him he had replaced Mr Van Lill’s phone so that police would find footage of his sexual exploits.

But said Mr Hughes: “There isn’t any footage on the phone.

“No images.

“It’s not much of a reason to put it back.

“Why murder Donavan Van Lill and then take the enormous risk of putting his phone back in the house he somehow tricked him out of.

“So the police can find a phone that confirms what half of Chippenham know? That Donavan Van Lill had sex with lots of people.”

The discrepancy between the evidence provided by Mr McKay and Mr Wells was also highlighted.

Mr Hughes recalled how Mr McKay had said Sugden had told him absolutely nothing about how and where he carried out the murder but Mr Wells recalled Mr McKay telling him Sugden stabbed his victim with a knife and disposed of the body at his parents farm.

Mr Hughes suggested the two friends discussed the threat Sugden made in 2008 to kill Mr Van Lill and ended up creating a story using information reported in the media.

He said: “We suggest everything, every single thing, was either in the public domain or could be guessed or assumed from what they knew or was in the newspaper.”

The lack of a body or any DNA evidence linking Mr Van Lill to Sugden or Clanville Bar was also pointed out by Mr Hughes.

He told the jury that the alleged confession to Mr McKay was the “breakthrough the police were desperate for”.

He said: “They searched far and wide.

“Experts picked over the farm and not a trace was found.

“You have banks of photographs of knives, choppers and weapons.

“The pictures look great.

“But no blood, no DNA was found.”

Mr Hughes referred to the murder of Bristol woman Joanna Yeates last December when he warned the jury not to fall into the trap of assuming Sugden’s guilt because he was an “oddball”.

He reminded the jury of the arrest of Miss Yeates’ landlord Chris Jeffries last year and subsequent release without charge.

He said: “He looked odd, he looked the part, how many of us thought he had done it and then it turns out his arrest, as far as we know, was wrong.”

Mr Hughes told the jury: “There is a temptation for each of us to judge people who are different from us, who look a bit odd, act a bit odd and sound a bit odd.

“We have to guard against this.”

In concluding his closing statement to the jury Mr Hughes said: “Beware alleged confessions.

“Witches were burned on the strength of them.

“And those reporting them nearly always believed they were doing God’s work all those centuries ago.”

The trial continues.