Karen Buckley ‘was strangled, hit with spanner’

A MAN charged with murdering Irish student Karen Buckley by attacking her with a spanner and strangling her has appeared in court for a second time.

Police seal off the area around High Craigton Farm, Drymen, where Karen Buckley's remains were found. Picture: John Devlin

Alexander Pacteau is accused of then covering her body in “corrosive substances” and putting her in a barrel.

The 21-year-old Pacteau appeared in the dock at a private court appearance today for the second time for a full committal hearing.

Pacteau, from the city’s West End, made no plea or declaration and was remanded in custody by sheriff Kenneth Hogg.

It is expected he will stand trial later this year.

Papers from Glasgow Sheriff Court claim that on April 12 at his Dorchester Avenue flat and elsewhere, he repeatedly hit her on the head with a spanner, or similar object.

The murder charge also reads that Pacteau “compressed her neck”.

Pacteau faces a second charge that between April 12 and 13 at his West End flat and at High Craigton Farm, Drymen, knowing he had killed Miss Buckley, he “applied corrosive substances” to her body.

It is alleged Pacteau put her body in a plastic barrel and “concealed” it in a storage shed.

Miss Buckley, a qualified nurse, went missing following a night out at the Sanctuary nightclub in Glasgow’s West End on April 11.

Her body was later found by police at a farm to the north of the city.