Rebecca DeFalco

A HIGH-CLASS call girl broke down in court after telling the Old Bailey how a charming and romantic client told her he was a killer.

American Rebecca DeFalco shed tears as she described how her relationship with wealthy Thanos Papalexis turned to fear.

She said he had wooed her with champagne and roses before telling her he worked as a "James Bond" character, spying for the British and American governments.

But after a fit of temper, DeFalco suddenly asked him: "Have you ever killed anyone?"

She alleges he replied: "Yes, I strangled someone. There were two people with me.

“This man was giving me problems. It happened in London. He said he was in the way."

She sobbed as she said Papalexis had added: "He didn't have to go. He was a family man."

DeFalco said she was shocked by the revelation and cooled their two-month relationship.

They had met in luxury hotels in Palm Beach, Florida, after he answered her internet advertisement in April 2004.

But soon, he asked her to give up her other clients for him, paying her $2,500 (£1,500) in lump sums.

She said their relationship was "turbo-charged" and she quickly fell under his spell after receiving romantic love letters from him.

"He was charming. He was someone I broke all the rules for. I fell hard. I was taken for a ride"

"He was charming. He was someone I broke all the rules for. I fell hard. I was taken for a ride," she said.

DeFalco, who is in her early 40s, was giving evidence at the trial of property developer Papalexis, who is accuses of killing Charalambos Christodoulides, 55.

Papalexis, 36, of Palm Beach, Florida, and failed Kosovan Albanian asylum seekers Ylli Xhelo, 36, unemployed and of no fixed address, and Robert Baxhija, 29, a painter of Sidney Avenue, Palmers Green, north London, deny murder.

Christodoulides's body was found in March 2000 in a garage inspection pit in the warehouse complex where he was a caretaker.

He had been tied to a chair, tortured and strangled as contracts were exchanged for the £2m sale of the building in Kilburn, north-west London.

The prosecution allege that Papalexis, whose family run Greek oil shipping tankers, killed him because he would not leave and the delay was jeopardising another multi-million pound development.

The trial continues.