A jury has retired to consider a verdict in the case of a man accused of murdering a police officer and dismembering his body.

Social worker Stefano Brizzi, 50, denies murdering PC Gordon Semple, from Greenhithe, at his south London flat after meeting him on gay dating app Grindr.

But he has admitted trying to get rid of the body by dissolving parts of it in a bathtub full of acid and dumping other parts in the Thames.

The trial at the Old Bailey heard Brizzi admitted being inspired by cult TV show Breaking Bad.

He told the court the Met Police officer, 59, died when a drug-fuelled sex game went wrong at his flat on April 1.

The 50-year-old drug addict says he panicked and decided to chop up PC Semple's body, dissolve it in a bathtub full of acid and throw some parts in the River Thames.

He is accused of murdering PC Semple, originally from Inverness in Scotland, by strangling him to death.

Brizzi was obsessed with Breaking Bad and wore the show's t-shirt to meetings of crystal meth addicts, jurors heard.

The TV show features one episode, called 'Cat's in the bag', in which the main character, Walter White, dissolves a rival in acid.

Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting, said: "I do want to ask you about Breaking Bad. You were rather a fan, weren't you?"

Brizzi admitted he had seen the series two or three times, but said he was a fan of many TV series, which he watched while trying to wean himself off crystal meth.

Mr Aylett said: "Breaking Bad seems to rather glorify crystal meth, because the down-at-heel chemistry teacher, who works in a car wash, ends up as a drug baron, doesn't he.

"He ends up producing vast quantities of very high-calibre crystal meth."

Brizzi "talked about it a lot" and glorified it at the Crystal Meth Anonymous group he went to, the prosecutor said.

Referring to the evidence given by the group's founder, Alex Roberts, Mr Aylett said: "He said that you wanted to be part of it. You thought that it was something amazing."

But Brizzi replied: "I don't know how he has come up with this allegation, but they are total falsities.

"Of course I had a dead body, and I had no idea, and I decided that I wanted to dispose of it" - Brizzi

"We were chatting, 'have you seen Game of Thrones'. They said, 'have you seen Breaking Bad'.

"And obviously because we were at Crystal Meth Anonymous, people were saying, you really shouldn't see it, because it triggers your views."

Mr Aylett said: "You used to wear the t-shirt to meetings, and Mr Roberts asked you to take it off."

Brizzi responded: "This is completely ridiculous. That is just unreal. I never had any t-shirt. He never asked me to take it off."

The prosecutor continued: "Early on in the first series, Mr Brizzi, there is a body that ends up having to be dissolved of. Do you remember that? The 'Cat's in the bag', do you remember it?"

Brizzi said: "I do remember it, yes."

Asked what happened to Walter White's rival, he said: "He gets put into a bath tub.

"I remember that it was acid."

In the episode, Walter White's sidekick Jesse tried to dissolve the body in a bath but the hydroflouric acid burns through it and it crashes to the floor.

Brizzi initially told PC Edwards, who was called to his flat, that he had used the same type of acid, jurors were told.

The court has been shown CCTV footage of Brizzi in a Leyland DIY store, buying equipment to dissolve the body, in which he inspects a plastic bucket, and apparently put his head into it.

Mr Aylett asked Brizzi he was so interested in the plastic bucket.

He said: "Were you trying to see whether it was acid proof?

"Did you not want to make the same mistake that Walter White's sidekick, Jesse, made, by buying the wrong type of bucket and the body fell to the floor?

"Was that on your mind, Mr White - sorry, Mr Brizzi?

"Were you living out an episode of Breaking Bad in your own little flat in Southwark? Being a part of it, glorifying in it?"

Brizzi replied: "It was not my intention.

"Of course I had a dead body, and I had no idea, and I decided that I wanted to dispose of it."

Mr Aylett asked: "Do you accept that you were living out an episode of Breaking Bad?"

Brizzi replied: "I accept I considered without any rationality at all.

"If I had thought about it, if I was some kind of criminal mind, I would have done things in a much more organised way.

"I think I was inspired by the idea. I took whatever was there, thinking maybe I can dissolve him.

"The bath was absolutely tiny. I had no knives, no swords, nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

"I had no idea what kind of chemical I was using.

"And I probably thought of the acid in Breaking Bad. I am not saying that I was not inspired by the idea.

"How many other ways could I have disposed of a body? I didn't know where to start.

"So the only thing I thought the first night was just to move it as as far away as possible."

Brizzi, of Southwark, south London, denied murder but admitted obstructing a coroner.