A part-time security guard accused of murdering two sex workers told an old school friend he felt like a wolf in a field of sheep.

Mum-of-two Elizabeth Howard told a jury at Hove Crown Court she visited Little Bridge Farm with her daughters after the first woman disappeared.

Mark Brown, 41, denies murdering two women at the remote farm near Hastings six months apart, including Leah Ware - who has not been seen since May 2021.

Mrs Howard told how she visited the farm with her daughters in July last year, two months after Leah was last seen alive.

She said Brown contacted her through Facebook and had hinted he was interested in a relationship.

Mrs Howard said she had been in constant contact with Brown over WhatsApp for more than two months after his initial Facebook message.

He showered her and her daughters with gifts including a smart TV and two sacks of toys.

Duncan Atkinson KC for the Crown told the jury there were 700 pages of WhatsApp messages between them.

Mrs Howard described Brown as a loner when they were at school together in Hastings.

“He would bunk off quite a lot. Mark was very insular. He was a very private person. He kept very much to himself and would often be seen on his own,” she told the jury.

Ms Ware, 33, a mother-of-three from Hastings was last seen by a friend in the early hours of May 6, 2021.

Her body has never been found. 

She was in a relationship with Brown who lived in St Leonards with his partner.

Ms Ware lived in a shipping container inside a barn rented by Brown at Little Bridge Farm.

Mrs Howard said Brown visited her at home for dinner with her daughters and then went to Little Bridge Farm on July 10 last year.

They stayed for nearly two hours and sheltered from the rain in the barn where Brown had a shipping container.

Brown always spoke about Ms Ware using the past tense, Mrs Howard told the court.

He described Leah as a Traveller who was now at peace and told Mrs Howard she was a big loss to the world.

In another message, he told Mrs Howard: “It’s nice to feel I’m not a wolf in a field of sheep.

“Only two people have made me feel that,” he wrote.

Mrs Howard said: “Mark had spoken to me many times saying how he felt about me.

“We remained friends only.

“He hinted at a relationship that’s why I said 'you already have a person'.”

Brown told Mrs Howard he believed she is an angel who saved his life in a road accident.

He told her: “You saved me back in the day.

“The night I died, I saw you.

“The night I went under that artic, I saw you.”

Mrs Howard told the court: “Mark believed I’m an angel. He told me he’d died in an accident.

“He believes he saw me and I helped bring him back to life.”

Brown, from Squirrel Close in St Leonards, denies murdering Ms Ware and Alexandra Morgan.

Ms Morgan, 34, a single mother-of-two from Sissinghurst, Kent, was reported missing in November 2021 after failing to return from a weekend away.

She was last seen filling her car at a petrol station near her home in Cranbrook, Kent on the morning of November 14.

Brown has admitted to being present when Ms Morgan died and disposing of her body by fire.

Charred teeth and bones identified as Ms Morgan were found at a building site in Sevenoaks, Kent, where Brown was working.

The court heard how he had sent Mrs Howard a message saying: “Now I'm going to be very careful how I word this but it happened again, not very long ago, while disposing of something, I try to laugh these things off, but it's a very unpleasant thing too do, old oil drum five litres of diesel, hey presto nothing much left, but it gets, hot very hot oil drum glows almost white, you go through a lot of stages in a situation like that.

“I’ve done monstrous things.

“Things I've done weigh heavily on my heart, in my head and soul, a psychopath with a conscious it's a joke really.”

Mrs Howard said she had no idea what Brown meant by disposing of something.

Brown told Mrs Howard he had been a bad man but had faced his demons.

The trial continues.