A teenager accused of strangling his girlfriend to death said: "If it was me, it was somebody who used me, it wasn't me."
Nigel Diakite is alleged to have killed young mum N'Taya Elliott-Cleverley in a "brutal, merciless and sustained attack".
Prosecutors say he used a skipping rope to murder the 20-year-old when she was in bed next to their sleeping baby's cot.
