The jury in the Jane Longhurst murder trial was continuing its deliberations today.

The seven men and five women spent 100 minutes yesterday trying to reach a verdict before Judge Richard Brown sent them home for the night.

They resumed their debate in the jury room at Lewes Crown Court this morning.

Graham Coutts sat all day yesterday almost motionless, staring into the well of the court and occasionally glancing at the jury, as Judge Brown summed up the evidence.

Coutts, a 35-year-old guitarist and part-time salesman, denies murdering Miss Longhurst at his flat in Waterloo Street, Hove, on March 14 last year.

The defence has admitted Coutts killed Miss Longhurst but said it was an accident during consensual strangulation sex.

Miss Longhurst, a 31-year-old musician and teacher at Uplands School for children with learning difficulties in Brighton, had a pair of tights round her neck when she collapsed dead.

Coutts said he picked her up from her home in Shaftesbury Road, Brighton, to go swimming but she seemed upset and they went back to his flat for tea.

He said he was comforting her and they started kissing before they moved to the bedroom.

Coutts hid her body for the next five weeks, regularly visiting it, before dumping and burning it at Wiggonholt Common, near Pulborough.

He told no one what had happened until late last year and said his silence was designed to protect his pregnant partner from a possible miscarriage.

The prosecution said he was lying and by murdering Miss Longhurst and storing her body he was satisfying a long-standing sexual fantasy.

He did not dial 999 or call for help when Miss Longhurst died because part of that fantasy involved keeping the body.

Coutts spent years downloading thousands of images of strangulation sex, rape and dead women and was viewing the web sites on the eve of Miss Longhurst's death.

Judge Brown yesterday told the jury to look hard at the evidence and not to let emotions interfere.

He said violent sex web sites were not illegal but the jury might think it an affront to common sense if they were to ignore the fact Coutts was viewing the sites just 24 hours before Miss Longhurst's death.

The judge reminded them Coutts visited the web sites at a time he was hiding Miss Longhurst's body.

Judge Brown said if Miss Longhurst's death had or may have been an accident then he was not guilty but "if, having considered all the evidence, you are sure it was not, that he did intend to kill her or cause her bodily harm, then he is guilty.

"You have to decide what happened on the day of Jane's death and the state of mind of the defendant."

It was not the job of the defence to prove anything but it was for the Crown to prove their case "and you have to be satisfied so you are sure."

Judge Brown added it was for the jury to decide whether Coutts intended to kill or cause serious harm.

"You may be asking how you decide what someone intended to do. You can't open up someone's mind and look inside."

He asked the jury to consider what Coutts did or did not do, what he may have said and his actions before, at the time and after the killing, adding: "All of this will shed light for you."

The judge reminded them of evidence from teacher Ruth Davis who told of a chat with Miss Longhurst in a staffroom in 1996.

Ms Davis said she had been left with the impression Miss Longhurst had indulged in asphyxia sex with her then-boyfriend. Miss Longhurst had been "amused and bemused" by the experience.

Judge Brown asked the jury whether Coutts had invented and tailored his defence only after learning of the prosecution's case.