THE man accused of murdering Hollie Green told police he could not look into the face of the woman he claimed to love as he strangled her to death.

Daniel Gibbons told officers who interviewed him after his arrest that he did not mean to kill the popular optician who he throttled in the bedroom of her Southampton home, Winchester Crown Court heard yesterday.

Jurors heard police interviews with Gibbons, 21, in the days after the killing in the early hours of August 31 last year.

He told police how he attacked Hollie, also 21.

He said: “I looked at her and couldn’t look at her and looked away and that is all I remember. I couldn’t look at her face. I just remember looking at the floor on the left. The next thing I knew is waking up in hospital.

“I have never done anything like that in my life. When I saw myself doing it I couldn’t look at her face. I would never dream of hurting her. I didn’t mean to kill her.”

Gibbons, a carpenter, of Redbridge Hill, Redbridge, denies murdering Hollie, of Taranto Road, Lordswood.

In a text on Gibbons’ phone that was never sent, he wrote shortly after the death: “I loved you Hollie, more than anyone can know. I’m sorry to the whole family and loved Hollie more than anyone in the world.”

Gibbons told detectives how the estranged pair had bumped into each other at a Southampton club, Oceana, and he went to her flat.

She returned separately with friends. They argued and Hollie tried to punch him, he claimed.

Gibbons told police: “We argued and went up the stairs to her bedroom.

She swung a couple of punches at me.

Nothing drastic. I grabbed hold of her and one thing led to another and I strangled her.”

He told officers he had been drinking all evening with fellow members of Totton and Eling Football Club. He had snorted three lines of cocaine but said it had not affected him.

The trial has heard that Hollie’s friends – Nicola Quiney, Lisa Fleming, Gemma Williams and Samantha Dunne – tried to no avail to get into the flat when they heard Hollie screaming inside.

Gibbons said he wanted a reconciliation but Hollie believed he had been unfaithful to her. Gibbons insisted he had not and said he believed she did want to give their relationship another chance.

Gibbons was questioned by police for nearly five hours and forsook his right to answer questions with a solicitor present.

Dr Huw White, consultant pathologist, told the court that Hollie’s injuries would only have required moderate force. He could not say for how long Hollie had been strangled.

The trial resumes on Tuesday.

Proceeding.