The milkman accused of the frenzied stabbing of schoolgirl Claire Tiltman was able to "restrain the animal within him" and not attack women for seven years, a court heard.

Colin Ash-Smith first stabbed a woman to near-death in December 1988 before repeatedly knifing another in October 1995.

At the start of his defence case, he told a jury he was an "animal with a very limited moral compass" at the time of the earlier attack.

The one in 1995 was triggered, he said, by "anger and frustration" because he mistakenly thought his girlfriend was having an affair.

But the 46-year-old maintained he did not stab Claire to death in an alleyway in Greenhithe in January 1993.

He said he became paranoid about being caught after the 1988 attack and neither planned nor carried out another until two years after the 16-year-old's frenzied and fatal stabbing.

"Had your nasty feelings to women just disappeared?" asked prosecutor Brian Altman QC, to which Ash-Smith replied: "I wouldn't say disappeared. Just subdued."

"You had managed to restrain the animal within you, had you?," continued Mr Altman during cross-examination.

"Yes," Ash-Smith simply replied.

When asked why he had not restrained himself when he attacked healthcare assistant Charlotte Barnard in 1995, stabbing her 14 times and just yards from where Claire was murdered, Ash-Smithtold the court: "I wanted to take my anger out on her. I have no excuse."

Inner London Crown Court had already heard that Ash-Smith, was "obsessed" with collecting and using knives in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

He told the court he habitually armed himself because it made him feel powerful at a time when he had a "very limited moral compass".

He described regular "midnight walks" he would take once his parents were asleep and would go out with the hope of provoking someone into attacking him.

He was jailed in 1996 for attempted murder, attempted rape and kidnap of the woman in Swanscombe in 1988.

In the early hours he forced her to a quarry, stripped her at knife and gunpoint, tried to strangle her with his old school tie and then stabbed her repeatedly in the back.

He also admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent in relation to the frenzied stabbing in 1995.

At the time of his arrest police found hand-written "assault plans" in which he gave chilling details of other planned attacks, including a break-in at a colleague's home in which he said he was in a "full psycho state of mind" and planned to sexually assault his (colleague's) wife at knifepoint.

But Ash-Smith repeatedly denied murdering Claire as he gave evidence, as well as lying about her murder to protect his family.

When asked by Mr Altman if he had been in the same "psycho" state when she was killed, he replied it had been "just another day" for him.

The court heard Claire and her parents were members of the Greenhithe and Swanscombe British Legion Club, as were the Ash-Smiths.

His father, Aubrey, was a committee member and his mother, Diane, was a ward councillor and then town mayor when he was arrested in 1995.

He said the thought that any association with Claire's death would cause "irreparable damage" to his family did not cross his mind.

"It wasn't an issue because I didn't do it," he told the jury.

His girlfriend at the time, Stella Murrell, told police how upset he was at Claire's death and his "over-the-top" reaction, which included pretending to attack Ms Murrell in the street to see "if anyone noticed".

Ash-Smith said he was upset but "probably over-exaggerated" it.

The prosecutor said the reason for his behaviour was the fact he killed the schoolgirl.

"You over-exaggerated because there was no other sensible explanation for why you were reacting to Claire's death in the way Stella said," Mr Altman told Ash-Smith, who answered: "No."

Mr Altman continued: "Because on January 18, 1993, you had been waiting, alone, in your distinctive white Capri, angry, looking for someone or something, and you crossed her on that zebra crossing at the top of Knockhall Chase, followed her, you snapped and you killed her."

Ash-Smith replied: "No I didn't."

During questions by his own barrister, David Nathan QC, Ash-Smith, said he drove his mum to a constituent's house in Eynsford Road, Greenhithe, before taking her back to their home in Milton Street, Swanscombe, where he remained for the rest of the evening.

He said he heard about Claire's death in newspapers the next day.

But he denied he had tried to mislead police by phoning the incident room to say he had seen a male with dark curly hair on the crossing near Knockhall Chase at about 6.30pm, only to claim six days later in a witness statement that he could not say whether the person he saw was male or female and that he was home by 6pm.

Claire had left her home in Horns Cross at 6pm to walk to her friend's home in Greenhithe and was attacked at about 6.20pm.

Ash-Smith told the jury he now had no memory of that sighting.

He also told the court that his parents volunteered to support Claire's parents, Lin and Cliff, after their only child's murder and that the effect on them caused his distress.

"I got to know them reasonably well. I saw the effect it had on them and that made me quite angry," he said.

Asked by Mr Nathan what he thought of Claire's killer, Ash-Smith replied: "I wanted to kill them myself."

The trial continues.