Kayleigh Dunning Portsmouth murder trial: Accused set up fake Facebook account with 'intimate' images of lover

Colas road sweeper Mark Brandford, 49, is on trial at Portsmouth Crown Court charged with murdering 32-year-old Kayleigh Dunning overnight on December 16-17, 2019, the same night he proposed to her.

Jurors have today heard cleaner Kayleigh’s phone was stolen in October 2018 and sexual images of her and the defendant were sent to her dad, brother and boss.

A month after this a fake Facebook account showing intimate images of her in underwear in ‘provocative poses’ was set up using a phone number Brandford had access to, jurors were told.

Prosecutor Simon Jones said Brandford watched as Ms Dunning got distressed while ‘secretly being the cause’ – driving friends and family away from her so he could ensure no-one would ‘take her away from him’.

Mr Jones said ‘threatening’ messages that were ‘deeply unpleasant’ were sent to Ms Dunning from another number in the summer of 2019.

Some of the messages referred to her ‘lover’ using a racial epithet with sexually explicit language, jurors said.

‘The pattern that will emerge in this is how Mark Brandford was doing this and seeking to deceive Kayleigh into thinking it was someone else.

‘He was, we say, the author of those messages but he’s upsetting her - that’s the intention - there could be no other intention, and he’s seeking to deceive - let her think it must be somebody else.’

He added: ‘Obviously Kayleigh was distressed. She was prescribed antidepressants as a result of the messages that were being sent out to her, to others.’

She reported this to the police and gave a statement on August 9, 2019, around two months before she died, the court heard.

Brandford gave a statement to the police the next day and said that ‘he’d been receiving abusive and obscene’ messages and even called the number and ‘heard voices’.

Mr Jones said: ‘He set up a fake Facebook account in Kayleigh’s name with lots of intimate photographs of her in her underwear.

‘She was mortified by that when she found out about it. There were invites and friend requests that were sent to her friends and family.

‘It was very distressing for Kayleigh, and adding to the sense that somebody was out to get her.’

READ NEXT: Portsmouth woman Kayleigh Dunning murdered by jealous lover in brutal attack on night he proposed, jury told

During the murder investigation police were able to identify Brandford was behind the use of the phone sending messages, Mr Jones said.

Ms Dunning’s stolen handset had been used with the SIM card used to send offensive messages to Ms Dunning’s boss, he added.

Brandford was spotted on CCTV going to Gemini News in London Road, North End, on December 11 in 2019 - five days before Ms Dunning’s death and when the phone was topped up.

Mr Jones said: ‘With control of both those numbers what he was doing was using them to frighten Kayleigh, to embarrass and discredit her with her family and employers, and to get her, and perhaps others, that sense of some unknown enemy was stalking her when it was him.’

Jurors yesterday heard a crowbar may have been the murder weapon. Ms Dunning suffered a crushed skull and severed artery in her neck and was found in a blood-soaked bed at Brandford's home in Kingston Crescent, North End.

He said: ‘The defendant may not have planned this killing and the overwhelming likelihood is that something caused an argument that night and he lashed out in anger, fuelled and driven by jealousy.

‘Perhaps she found out that he was responsible for the Facebook account, the videos, perhaps she found her missing phone.’

He said perhaps Brandford carried out the murder in a ‘more sinister and premeditated way’ and that he 'created the impression that someone else was out to get Kayleigh’.

He added: ‘You may therefore wonder whether the defendant had planned this killing and attempted to create the impression that she had been killed by an intruder or a stalker.’

Brandford wanted control to ‘distance her from anyone who could take her away from him,’ Mr Jones said, and added: ‘We say that is a man who ultimately had the view that if he could not have Kayleigh Dunning that no-one else could.’

He added: ‘This was a sustained and extremely violent attack by a jealous man.’

Brandford, of Kingston Crescent, denies murder and a charge of revenge porn.

(Proceeding)

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