A single dad has gone on trial for murdering his little boy’s six-year-old female pal and sexually abusing her corpse before blowing the house up to try and hide his sickening crime.

The boy and the girl played together regularly in the local park, and her mother had trusted the dad enough to let her daughter stay the night with her playpark pal.

Since then the accused Sven Messner, 34, has spoken only to say he has nothing to say over the charge of killing his son’s six-year-old friend, named only as Shaki.

Baden-Baden public prosecutor Michael Klose told media: “Officially he has made no statements, so we are dependent on other evidence.”

The murder was carried out at his home in the German town of Baden-Baden, in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, in south-western Germany, on Sunday, 19th December, 2021.

Messner, who was known in his neighbourhood as a loving father, is accused of slitting the little girl’s throat and inflicting stab wounds on her abdomen between midnight and 3am, according to prosecutors.

Messner, who is separated from his son’s mother, then allegedly violated the young girl’s corpse sexually and tried to cover up his crime by turning on the Christmas tree lights and the gas in the oven.

Firefighters showed up to a burning house, with Messner found unconscious in the garden, while his son survived the ordeal despite suffering from smoke inhalation along with two unnamed relatives.

While in prison awaiting trial, Messner has refused to be examined by a psychiatrist and has allegedly tried to take his own life several times.

A total of eight days of negotiations were scheduled until the end of September, when the trial is expected to conclude.

The offender’s brother Mike Messner, aged 41, said: “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that little girl. I loved my brother, but now I hate him.

“The devil must have gotten into him.”

Necrophilia is described by psychologists as the sexual attraction to dead bodies.