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A part-time security guard accused of murdering two women shacked up with one inside a disused bingo hall just weeks before they disappeared, a court has heard.
Mark Brown is currently on trial for the alleged murders of Alexandra Morgan, 34, from Sissinghurst, and Leah Ware, 33, from Hastings, who he met through the same adult service website.
Ms Morgan, a mum-of-two was last seen at a petrol station near her home in Cranbrook on Remembrance Day last year.
Her disappearance sparked a huge missing persons investigation by Kent Police and her remains – including burned bone fragments and teeth – were later located inside an oil drum at a building site where the defendant worked near Sevenoaks.
Brown, 41, previously admitted destroying Ms Morgan's body by fire "in a panic", but claims it was an accident and denies her killing at his "hobby" yard in Little Bridge Farm.
He also stands accused of murdering a second woman, Leah Ware just six months prior while having an affair.
A five-week trial is currently underway at Hove Crown Court where Brown denies both charges.
The defence case got under way this morning with Brown taking the stand for the first time.
He appeared with his hair slicked back and wore a navy suit and tie with blue washed jeans while giving evidence.
Today's hearing focused on Brown’s "on again, off again" relationship with Ms Ware, which lasted between 2018 and May 2021, the jury was told.
In the months before the Hastings mum's disappearance, Brown told the court he was considering leaving his long-term partner, with whom he had three sons, to be with Ms Ware permanently.
However, he said he rowed back on this commitment because of Ms Ware’s long-term "crack cocaine and heroin” habit which had resurfaced.
The labourer described to the court how the pair had shacked up again at the disused Mecca Bingo Hall in Ashford where Brown was working a security job between April 17 and 30 2021.
At this point he said they were not sleeping together and had "pretty much broken off completely" but she continued to accompany him on shifts.
Ms Ware brought her dog Duke to the site and camped up with him in a sleeping area in an old kitchen area of the derelict building.
Brown also told the court he worked another security job at the disused Debenhams in the town which had operated as a makeshift Covid walk-in centre.
"The first 10 days I was there 24/7" he said. " I had someone to fill in for me and do days but he didn't turn up so Leah offered to fill in and do security with me."
Asked about the state of their relationship he said "they had always got on no matter what" and despite heated arguments there was never physical violence, he claimed.
When questioned by defence barrister Ian Henderson KC, Brown denied the killing of Ms Ware, and disputed the earlier testimony of one witness that he had orally raped her.
"I accept she [the witness] said it," he said. "I don't accept it's true in any shape or form."
The father-of-three also denied being controlling towards her and said he didn't know of Ms Ware's whereabouts.
Brown accepted when questioned he had given differing accounts to various people who gave evidence earlier in the trial as to where Ms Ware was after the prosecution allege he killed her in May 2021.
The defendant also told the court about his concerns over Ms Ware's growing drug misuse and claimed she suffered from psychosis and had four different personalities which he named.
Describing their relationship, the part-time security guard said: "When it was good it was good. What I mean by that is when she was being Princess, when she was Leah, you couldn't ask for someone to be more loving, supportive, friendly."
He told two friends Ms Ware had been sectioned and was in Woodlands, a mental health facility, while others were told that she was “no longer with us”.
When asked why he had told certain people she had “taken her own life” he replied "Because it was an easier way of speaking without the other stuff."
'You couldn't ask for someone to be more loving, supportive, friendly'
"I think I used the words no longer with us just cause most people then no longer ask questions," he said. "Basically your honour I'm not very good at talking about stuff."
Brown, who himself used on occasion, said he had bought her marijuana "on occasion" but only purchased cocaine and heroin for Ms Ware once, he claimed.
At this point the defendant broke down in tears and said this happened “on the day we lost the baby” – in reference to a termination Ms Ware went through with on February 21, 2020.
Later jurors heard how Brown said he noticed Lady, Ms Ware’s Pomeranian dog, had gone missing on either April 4 or 5.
When he asked where she was, Ms Ware said “she had probably run off into the woods or gone after a rabbit”.
The next day, Brown visited Little Bridge Farm, where Ms Ware continued to live with her two dogs, but could not find Ms Ware or Lady.
He found her other dog, Duke, fed him, and then decided to take him for a walk around the farm. While on the walk, he found something floating in the lake.
Brown said: “There were cut down tree branches in the water and what looked like Lady was on top of the branches floating in the lake.
“I got a rake to try and pull Lady out of the water and she came up with a chain around her neck and a 12kg weight tied to it.
“Duke was all over it so I took him back inside then went back to see if I could find Leah.
“I found her and I said ‘you’re f****** sick, you’ve lost it, I can’t cope with this shit when you’re like this’, then I got in the car and drove off. Leah didn’t say anything or really react.”
Brown said he bought Lady for Ms Ware as “emotional support” and a “reason to get up in the morning”.
Ms Ware’s friends and family say she was a devoted animal lover and would never have allowed any harm to come to her pets.
The prosecution case, which has been running for little over three weeks, drew to a close on Tuesday.
Outlining the case against Brown, Duncan Atkinson KC told the court last month that six months after Ms Ware's disappearance, Ms Morgan, a 34-year-old mum-of-two also disappeared on November 14, 2021, when she failed to pick up her children from what her parents understood to be a spa trip with a friend.
The court heard Ms Morgan, had arranged to meet Brown, as a client at Little Bridge Farm.
Investigators used cell tower records and ANPR cameras to track her route to the yard Brown rented in East Sussex.
Ms Morgan is then seen arriving outside the premises in Rock Lane in her white Mini Cooper before following Brown's gold Jaguar up a dirt road.
He agreed to a non-custodial police interview and gives information only relating to the missing person investigation.
But after a thorough search of his yard was arrested and later charged with Ms Morgan's murder days later.
Jurors were told Ms Morgan left a "trail of clues" inside a rollerblade box about her upcoming meet with Brown and a highly-paid job at a hotel in Brighton at which he worked as security.
The box included a large sum of cash, a mobile telephone and a handwritten note. The note included the PIN for the phone, and details of the locations she was due to travel to.
Read more from this case:
Trial of man accused of killing Sissinghurst mum Alexandra Morgan begins
Murder accused Mark Brown described himself as 'psychopath with a conscience'
Convicted drug dealer denies killing Leah Ware
Murder accused’s type was ‘drop dead girls with mental health issues’
Leah Ware’s phone off network when shut in shipping container, murder trial told
Brown, of Squirrel Close in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, denies the murder of both Alexandra Morgan and Leah Ware.
The trial continues.
