The former long-term partner of the man accused of killing a French student on Twickenham Green has told the Old Bailey he threatened to kill himself around the time of the murder.

Emma Mills, 30, told the Central Criminal Court on Monday, December 10, that Levi Bellfield, who is the father of her three children, said he was going to take his own life in August 2004, days after Amelie Delagrange was murdered.

Bellfield, 39, from West Drayton, denies killing the French student on August 19 2004 and has also pleaded not guilty to the murder of Hampton teenager Marsh McDonnell in 2003, two attempted murders and counts of false imprisonment and kidnap.

Miss Mills, who first met Bellfield in a Cobham nightclub when she was 19 in 1995, lived with the former doorman and wheel clamper in Manor Road, Twickenham, and Clement Court, Hounslow, before the couple moved to West Drayton in 1999.

She told the Old Bailey she got a call from him a few days after August 19 and said he told her he was feeling low.

"He said he was going to kill himself," she said.

Miss Mills told the court it was the first time he had said anything like that and Bellfield told her he was in trouble with the police but was very vague and sobbing down the phone in the call, made in the early hours of the morning.

"He said he was going to go to prison," continued Miss Mills, crying in the witness box. "He said to tell the children he loved them, I was worried about him."

She told the court he spent a night in Hillingdon Hospital soon after the late night call after speaking to his doctor.

"I rang his doctor," she said. "He wanted to speak to Levi and he said he should go to hospital, Levi told the doctor he had taken an overdose."

Miss Mills also told the Old Bailey Bellfield said to her that she would be arranging his funeral in a couple of months.

She confirmed Bellfield had been suffering from panic attacks for a number of years, had money worries and was facing a possible prison sentence for a matter involving a man called Peter Rodrigues but said she didn't know he was being investigated for his claiming of benefits and a matter arising from his work as a wheel clamper.