Stuart Hazell told a prison officer "nothing sexual" happened between him and Tia Sharp and her death was an accident, a court heard.

At the Old Bailey today, a prison officer said Mr Hazell told him: "I am not like Ian Huntley - it was nothing sexual. I am not a nonce."

Warren Fegan, a prison officer at Belmarsh Prison where Stuart Hazell was held after he was charged for Tia's murder gave evidence this morning at Mr Hazell's trial.

Mr Fegan told the court: "He was saying that the press was trying to make it look like it was sexual but it wasn't."

"He said that it was an accident, she had fallen down stairs and broken her neck."

Mr Fegan said: "He said that he didn't know what to do and he picked her up and took her upstairs and laid her on the bed, and he thought that she would get better.

"He didn't know what to do, so he wrapped her in a sheet and put her in the loft."

But prison officer Paul Leahy said Mr Hazell had later told him his neighbours must have moved her body into his loft.

He said: "What the press don't tell you is that all six or eight houses have joint lofts, they are linked together.

"Police searched my house four times and didn't find anything. In my opinion someone has moved her into my loft."

Mr Leahy said Mr Hazell pointed the finger at some Somalian neighbours, stating: "They were shouting and throwing plates at each other, it is them the police should look at, they are the bacons (prison slang for sex offenders) not me."

Mr Hazell, the former boyfriend of Tia's grandmother Christine Bicknell, denies murder.

Schoolgirl Tia's body was found in the loft of Ms Bicknell's house in the Lindens, New Addington, south London, on August 10 last year, a week after she went missing.

Mr Hazell wwas involved in the search for the missing schoolgirl and said he had seen her leaving the house before she disappeared.

Prosecutors say Hazell killed Tia and hid her body in the loft of the house.

Mr Fegan told the court: "I remember asking him how he was feeling. He put his head in his hands and said: 'Guilty, guv.'"

Mr Hazell told the prison officer on August 15 that he wished he could "turn back the clock".

Fegan said Hazell said: "I deserve everything I get, 25-30 years, I don't care."

The trial continues.