A TEENAGER who killed a schoolboy after paying him more than £2,000 to stop him revealing their affair has told a jury he was questioning his sexuality and felt 'suicidal'.

Matthew Mason, 19, denies the murder of Alex Rodda, 15, but admits beating him to death with a wrench in remote woodland in Ashley on December 12 last year.

Giving evidence at Chester Crown Court today, December 17, Mason – who lived with his parents on a farm near Knutsford – said he began questioning his sexuality after Alex messaged him.

He said: "I had never had any trouble with my sexuality before, I was always straight and I've been in relationships with girls.

"After a couple of weeks of receiving messages from Alex Rodda I started questioning this and thought whether I was bisexual maybe."

He told the court he and his girlfriend, Caitlyn Lancashire, broke up after Alex contacted her and told her Mason was messaging him, but the pair had stayed in touch.

He said he wished things had worked out with Miss Lancashire, with whom he had been in a relationship for about two years.

"We had a lot of happy memories together," he said.

"I regret making mistakes I made and it still upsets me now."

Mason began crying as he said that, in the weeks leading up to the killing, he struggled to sleep.

Asked by Gordon Cole QC, defending, how he was feeling about his life at the time, he said: "I did start to feel suicidal."

Mason, who was studying agricultural engineering at Reaseheath College, told the jury he accepted that his actions led to Alex's death.

Asked how he felt about that now, he said: "Ashamed."

He said Miss Lancashire had visited him in prison and he had confessed to her that he killed Alex.

He said: "I've had quite a few visits off Caitlyn but the most emotional was the first visit in January."

He said he encouraged her to go to the police and tell them what he said.

"I didn't want her to get in trouble for withholding valuable evidence," he added.

Mason, of Ash Lane, Ollerton, denies murder.

The trial is due to continue until early January.

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