A JILTED teenager who was 'embittered by rejection' bombarded his ex-girlfriend with hundreds of calls and text messages before murdering her, a court heard.

Gulamyr Akhter, 19, made more than 600 calls and texts to A-level student Asha Muneer in the two-week period before her death, Reading Crown Court was told.

Akhter then lied to police claiming he didn't have the 18-year-old's number on his mobile and had not contacted her for weeks, the prosecution said.

John Price QC, prosecuting, told the packed courtroom that Akhter had two phones he had kept secret from police.

He said Akhter used these phones to harass Ms Muneer and that the handsets could be traced to the location and time of her death on January 18 this year.

Mr Price said: "He was, the crown submit, desperate to conceal from the police the frequency of calls that illustrate his obsession with her and his harassment of her when she rejected him."

Akhter is accused of repeatedly stabbing Ms Muneer as she walked through Reading after a shift at a Laura Ashley store, where she worked as a part-time sales assistant.

Prosecutors claim Akhter, of Victoria Way, Reading, murdered the young woman "because he could not tolerate her rejection of him".

Today the court was read a series of text messages allegedly sent by Akhter to Ms Muneer after she had ended their relationship last July.

One text read: "I'm going to make your life hell." Another said: "The start date is going to start now for making your life hell." A third read: "I wish you go through hell and you die."

Akhter denies murder.

Mr Price alleged that Akhter had arranged to be dropped off by friends near the Brunel retail Park where Ms Muneer worked part-time on the late afternoon of January 18.

He then followed her home after she clocked off from work, attacking her on a towpath beside the River Kennet, near the retail park.

Video footage revealed that, during the journey, she was joined by a man in dark clothes and a hooded top, carrying a rucksack.

The last sighting of her on CCTV footage is shortly before 6.30pm. She is seen walking towards the underpass where her body was found nearly two hours later.

Mr Price alleged that Akhter then arranged to be picked up from the retail park at around 7pm.

He said video footage taken at a petrol station on the A4 near Reading showed Akhter buying a petrol can and petrol about 30 minutes later.

He claimed that Akhter then travelled with friends to a deserted field, where he set fire to clothing, his rucksack and a mobile phone allegedly used to repeatedly call his former girlfriend.

Detectives subsequently searched Akhter's home address, where they found three kitchen knives which closely matched the murder weapon.

Mr Price suggested that the knife used to kill Ms Muneer had been a part of this set.

He said: "All this evidence combines together to present a very simple though very dreadful picture."

He described Akhter as being "completely embittered by her rejection of him and simply unable to accept it".

He added: "Gulamyr Akhter set out to find Asha Muneer and then to kill her."

The court heard that the victim was stabbed more than 30 times in the attack.

Home Office pathologist Kenneth Shorrocks said she died as a result of multiple incised wounds to the neck.

He explained: "To put it simply, she had been stabbed loads of times in the neck."

There was weeping in the public gallery as the pathologist detailed each injury in turn.

He explained that cuts to Ms Muneer's hand were consistent with defence injuries.

He told the court: "It is my view that these are defence injuries. She was likely to know that something awful was going to happen and she has tried to prevent herself form being stabbed."

He said that some of the cuts were so deep they had dug into the bone in her vertebrae.

Dr Shorrocks said the injuries could have been caused by the kitchen knife found near the scene.

Asked about the force of the attack he said: "In this case she had cuts on the bone on her vertebrae. To cut into bone takes severe force."