A court has heard how a teenager was lured to her death at a hotel in Blackpool by a man who had befriended her on Facebook.
The burning body of 16-year-old Sasha Marsden was discovered in an alleyway on January 31. David Minto, 22, denies her murder.
Opening the trial, Peter Wright QC told the jury that Minto lured the girl to the Grafton House Hotel, where he worked as caretaker and barman, on the pretext of getting her a job as a cleaner.
Mr Wright told the court Minto knew the hotel would be empty and that he attacked and sexually assaulted Sasha and stabbed her repeatedly with a kitchen knife.
Then as she lay dead or dying it was claimed he further sexually assaulted her before wrapping her partially-clothed body in a bin liner and setting it alight in a nearby alleyway.
The jury was told that before her death Sasha had been living with her parents and boyfriend. She was studying childcare at a local college.
Several members of her family were in court for the start of the trial.
The case continues at Preston Crown Court.
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