Viktorija Sokolova murder trial: Jury told of horror injuries sustained by teenager

Forensic pathologist Dr Brett Lockyer told Wolverhampton Crown Court: "There were a number of significant injuries to head and face that resulted in complex fracturing of the skull and facial bones. A minimum of 21 blows were delivered, many with severe force, causing traumatic damage to the brain."

A hammer-like weapon was likely to have been responsible for the worst of these. An egg-shaped laceration exposed fractures to the skull while another caused major brain damage.

Viktorija's right nostril was partially amputated and the nose broken, explained the pathologist. An ear was almost divided in two and there were fractures to the face, one of which was to the left side of the jaw and ran into the eye socket, the jury heard. Her back bone was also fractured.

The fatal attack was launched in the 'black house' - the wooden pavilion - at Wolverhampton's West Park where she had gone to meet a 16-year-old youth, who was among her Facebook friends, late at night on April 11.

Her semi naked body was discovered just before 7am the following day in a kneeling position, with the knees on the ground and the top half draped over the arm of a bench 150 metres away.

There had been heavy bleeding at both locations and when asked where she died Dr Lockyer replied: "I am not an expert on blood patterns but that found at the bench is likely to come from oozing after death." He gave the cause of death as blunt force head injury.

Expert imagery analyst Joanne Ippolito told the court that CCTV film of a young man, alleged to have been the murderer arriving and leaving the park on the night Viktorija was bludgeoned to death, were 'one and the same person.'

But she could only offer 'limited support' to the prosecution claim that this person was the 16-year-old defendant. Mrs Ippolito explained this was because the quality of CCTV imagery she had to work from was not sufficiently detailed to reach a definitive conclusion.

The youth, who cannot be named because of his age, denies murder, rape and having sex with the body of the girl after death. The case continues tomorrow.