By a thisiscostablanca correspondent
A 44 year old British fugitive held in Alicante over the brutal murder of a British woman has claimed in a letter to the Daily Mirror that he killed her, then ate her, the mass circulation newspaper said today.

In what could be scene from The Silence of The Lambs, writing from his prison cell on the Costa Blanca, Paul Durant, 44, who was arrested in February over the killing of Karen Durrell, 41, confessed to having killed her, then cut her up in Calpe in a fit of cannibalism.

"After I killed her, I cut her body into small parts, eating what part of her I found eatable," he wrote, the newspaper reported.

"I finally disposed of what was left in small rubbish bags around Calpe."

He added: "Before I killed Karen I told her I had come to Spain where I was going to kill and eat pedophiles. My mental stage was breaking down at this stage. I believed God had delivered her to me ..."

Durant, who served two prison terms for armed robberies in the 1980s and 1990s, fled to Spain with a bogus passport after escaping police custody last December following an attempted burglary in London, the Daily Mirror said.

Karen Durrell was travelling through Spain with her boyfriend when they met Durant in a bar.

Police who searched a flat in Calpe found blood-stained knives and a saw with traces of human tissue – but not her body.