A DRUG dealer has admitted killing two drug-users as they slept in the living-room of his city centre flat.

A jury heard that John Paul Marshall, 43, bludgeoned Kevin Mulgrew and Daniel Wall to death with a heavy wooden lampstand at his home above a bakery in Gillygate, York.

Leeds Crown Court was told Marshall covered the bodies and tried to clean some of the blood, but the bodies were found after blood dripped into the bakery below.

Marshall fled to Holland, but was arrested and extradited to England in June.

James Goss QC, prosecuting, said the cannabis dealer and heroin user will plead that his actions were the result of provocation by the two men.

He said: "He admits having unlawfully killed both Kevin Mulgrew and Daniel Wall.

"The defence to the offence of murder is that at the time he killed them, he was acting under provocation.

"As a result of what was said or things done, or both, he suddenly and temporarily lost his self-control."

The partially-decomposed bodies of Mr Wall, 27, and Mr Mulgrew, 38, both of Chapelfields, York, were found on December 4 last year.

Mr Goss said the two heroin dealers moved into the Gillygate flat at the end of November after police raided their Cemetery Road council flat and left them homeless.

Marshall denies two counts of murder. The trial continues.