Sally Anne's mum faces accused killer in court

1:31pm Friday 30th June 2006

This is the man who came face to face with the family of Sally Anne Bowman in court, accused of murdering the teenage model and sexually assaulting her dead body.

Chef Mark Dixie, 35, was photographed in the Earl of Eldon, the South Croydon pub where he worked in 2001 - four years before Miss Bowman was stabbed to death outside her home. His face is obscured for legal reasons.

Yesterday Miss Bowman's mother Linda, 44, sat only 10ft from Dixie when he appeared before magistrates for the first time yesterday.

The burly 6ft 3in chef remained quiet as the charges were read out in the five-minute hearing, only nodding to confirm his name.

As he was driven away, a mob pelted his prison van with eggs. "Rot in hell!" the crowd shouted.

Apart from the murder, Dixie is also charged with indecent assault and outraging public decency over an incident in Purley, south London, in 2001. A man masturbated in front of a woman making a call from a public phone box.

Miss Bowman, who dreamt of appearing on the cover of Vogue, was attacked in the early on Saturday 25 September 2005 - the same night on which Dixie was celebrating his 35th birthday.

The chef was arrested on Tuesday in front of astonished customers at his new workplace, Ye Olde Six Bells pub in Horley, Surrey.

For the past two days officers have been digging up the garden and searching the 14th century pub with metal detectors.

They also combed a flat near the murder scene, where Dixie lived last year with his former girlfriend Stacey Nivet - the mother of his baby son. When they split months before the murder, he moved in with a cousin in Coulsdon.

Mis Bowman's father Paul, 43, three sisters Danielle, 25, Nicole, 23 and Michelle, 21, and her boyfriend Lewis Sproston, 20, also attended the hearing at Sutton magistrate's court.