Student murders jury given majority direction

Jurors trying two men accused of the horrific murders of two French students were today told they could return a majority verdict.

Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, were stabbed 244 times in what prosecutors have described as an "orgy of bloodletting".

It is alleged that Dano Sonnex and Nigel Farmer burst into Mr Bonomo's bedsit in New Cross, south London in a burglary gone wrong.

The two students were tied up and subjected to a three-hour torture ordeal before they died in June last year, and the flat was set ablaze, the jury at the Old Bailey has heard.

Today the six-man, six-woman panel was given a majority direction by Mr Justice Saunders, meaning they can return a verdict on which just ten are agreed.

It came on the fourth day of deliberations in the five-week trial.

Sonnex, 23, of Peckham, and Farmer, 34, of no fixed address, both deny murder, false imprisonment and arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered. Sonnex admits a charge of burglary, which Farmer denies.

Father-of-two Farmer admits setting the fire at the property but claims he only did it after his children's lives were threatened and he had nothing to do with the murders.

Sonnex says he went with his co-defendant to carry out the burglary and tied one of the students up but that it was Farmer who stabbed them.