A taxi driver has told a jury that he panicked and made "a massive mistake" by throwing his mobile telephones in the river in the days after his ex-girlfriend was allegedly murdered.

It was before police could download data from the two telephones and Ben Lacomba said he had started to have suspicions that officers might believe he was involved with mother-of-five Sarah Wellgreen's disappearance.

On why he dumped his telephones into the River Thames at Greenhithe, on October 14 2018, Lacomba told London's Woolwich Crown Court: "It was stupid. I made a mistake, a massive mistake.

"Now I am not tired and panicky. They could have downloaded everything and I may be not sitting here today."

Lacomba, 39, denies murdering Ms Wellgreen, 46, on October 9 2018, saying he was in bed asleep all night before waking at 7am to find her missing.

The beautician has not been seen since disappearing from the home she shared with Lacomba, in New Ash Green, in October last year.

Despite extensive searches by Kent Police, Ms Wellgreen's body has not been found.

The prosecution say Lacomba murdered her in a "premeditated and calculated act" and may have been motivated by the potential loss of his property and his children.

He then dumped her body in an unknown location, it is alleged.

There was a flurry of unanswered calls and messages from Ms Wellgreen's worried family to her phone, and Lacomba reported her missing to police.

It led to extensive police searches at Lacomba's home and a request by them to look at his mobile phones, including the deleted material on it.

Lacomba, who described himself as "tired and stressed" at that time, told the jury that the continued police presence had led to "bickering" and "upheaval" in his home.

He said he wanted to help the police because "the priority was to try to find Sarah and if they (the police) felt it was necessary - that was their job".

Lacomba and Ms Wellgreen, who were no longer a couple, had been living under the same roof since May 2018.

Lacomba told the court he panicked when police asked to see the deleted telephone information because he had previously written "nasty" tit-for-tat messages in draft to Ms Wellgreen.

These were unsent but dated back to an "acrimonious" period after they had split as a couple, the court heard.

Lacomba told the court he "snapped" the telephones and took out the Sim card before dumping them.

He said: "Yes, I panicked. There were things racing through my mind. I was trying to think of everything that was on my telephone."

He added: "Sarah sent them (the messages) to me and they would be provoking me for a response. They were usually nasty messages - to deal with them I would compose in my notepad nasty messages back."

Lacomba said he had been "chewing things over" in his mind by the time he got rid of the telephones.

He asked himself: "Did something bad happen to Sarah? Were the police already looking at me? I had tried everything possible back to Tuesday when I last saw her to help the police and been as open and honest as possible."

After throwing the telephones away Lacomba says he went to a McDonald's so he was seen on camera.

He told the court: "I was going to tell the police why I had thrown the telephones in the river. I did not want them to think I was trying to hide something else."

Then next day Lacomba got £300 from his mother during a shopping trip and bought a new telephone.

He left the stickers on it so there was no attempt to try and pass it off as the original handset which he had told officers he would hand over to them.

Internet searches after Lacomba was arrested and released on bail show he had been looking up information on how to tell if your telephone has been tracked, the court heard.

Lacomba described himself as "tired and completely paranoid" that the police may been bugging his telephone and "looking at me for Sarah's murder".