Peter Madsen, the Danish inventor charged with killing Kim Wall, has said she died after being hit by a hatch cover aboard his submarine.

Testifying in court on Tuesday, Mr Madsen claimed he had been holding the hatch for Wall and had slipped, causing the heavy cover to fall on the journalist.

"I lost my foothold and the hatch shuts," he said, "Kim had been severely hurt and was laying with an intense bleeding. There was a pool of blood where she had landed."

The 30-year-old journalist was last seen alive on board his homemade submarine the day before it sank off Copenhagen's coastline on August 11th.

He was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter the day after Ms Wall disappeared, but insists she died in an accident before he buried her at sea.

Madsen (46) is also facing a charge of abuse of a corpse following the discovering of Ms Wall's headless and naked torso.

Police said the journalist's limbs had been "deliberately cut off", while metal had been attached to the body and "deliberate damage" inflicted.

Her blood was found inside Madsen's 18-metre Nautilus submarine, which he is believed to have sank intentionally.

Detectives announced last month they had suspended the search for Ms Wall's remaining body parts in the waters between Denmark and Sweden.

However divers were still searching the area around the harbour where Madsen was taken after being rescued from his craft.

The death of the freelancer journalist - who wrote for publications such as The New York Times, Harper's Magazine and The Guardian - has led detectives to review a 1986 case when body parts of a Japanese tourist were found in bags at separate locations in the waters around Copenhagen.