A man accused of strangling a police officer and trying to dissolve his body in an acid bath is "not a monster", his lawyer has told jurors.

Stefano Brizzi, 50, is on trial at the Old Bailey charged with the murder of Inverness-born Gordon Semple.

The crystal meth addict admits cutting up the 59-year-old's body at his London flat and trying to dispose of it before his arrest on April 7 but denies consuming Mr Semple's flesh.

He claims the police officer died accidentally during a sex game gone wrong.

Lawyer Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC told jurors: "Stefano Brizzi would be the first to accept - and he has done as we know by his plea of guilty of obstructing a coroner - that his actions between the time of Gordon Semple's death and his arrest on April 7 were both horrific and inhuman.

"He does not dispute that but you may think whatever those actions were, and you know he has not attempted to run away from his responsibility for them, they were carried out while he was in a hell of his own making by virtue of the drugs he had taken."

She told jurors to focus on the circumstances of Mr Semple's death rather than what happened afterwards.

Ms Bennett-Jenkins said: "Just as Gordon Semple was a good man, Mr Brizzi is a middle-aged, intelligent, urbane, interested linguist, a highly-skilled professional.

"He is not a monster. He is a human being, like you or I."

Ms Bennett-Jenkins told jurors people's sexual preferences were their own business.

The defendant's "intellectual curiosity" in religion and ideas of Satanism may be "distasteful" but people are entitled to read any books they choose, she said.

The lawyer dismissed the suggestion of a possible bite mark on the body, saying speculation lies beyond the remit of a jury.

She highlighted the presence of strong acid at the flat which left police officers needing treatment in hospital and said: "No one could attempt to take into their mouth any form of item that had been exposed to those chemicals."