A dad-of-four was repeatedly stabbed and brutally bludgeoned with a iron "to finish him off" by killers who came to his West Norwood home to murder someone else, a court heard.

Chef Donald MacPherson, found killed in his bed, had some 80 stab wounds and injuries, and his face shattered by 11 blows from the iron, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

Mark Heywood, prosecuting, said the 60-year-old grandad’s “misfortune was simply to be there”.

The killers’ intended target was Luciano Schiano, 49, an Italian with whom he shared a flat in Summersell House, Bentons Rise, the jury was told.

Their alleged killers, Massimiano Manai, 49, and Claudio Lamponi, 30, had come to kill Mr Schiano in the small hours of Tuesday, October 13, last year after Schiano made sexual advances towards Mr Manai’s girlfriend, it was alleged.

Both believed Mr MacPherson would be away from the flat, the court was told, but Mr Heywood said Mr Manai and Mr Lamponi, both Italians living together in Norwood High Street, “had come there to kill” and “were prepared for the bloodshed that followed”.

Mr Schiano was stabbed 29 times in the chest and neck in his living room. Mr Macpherson’s wounds were to the face, neck, chest and thighs – with one wound to the Scotsman’s shoulder blade 17cm deep, meaning the blade “was at least that length”, Mr Heywood said.

The iron that broke parts of his face from his skull was damaged from the ferocity of the blows, then left just inches from his body.

Mr Heywood said: “They stood no chance of life, they were spared not at all. Each in his turn was brutally killed, stabbed with repeated blows from a knife or knives of length.”

Their bodies were not found until a week later.

Mr MacPherson’s daughters raised the alarm when their father did not show for work at the exclusive Reform Club in Pall Mall.

The court heard the three Italians were good friends for years, doing drugs and drinking together, but there was “no love lost between the three of them” as a result of Mr Schiano’s advances towards Mr Manai’s girlfriend at a party in August last year.

Mr Manai had drawn Mr Schiano’s blood after headbutting him at the party and Lamponi later sent him a text message telling him he would kill him if he saw him again, the court heard.

There was no other contact between the men for six weeks until Lamponi made an unanswered call to Mr Schiano the night of the attack.

The two alleged killers' DNA and blood was found on the bodies of the two victims and in blood splatters on the walls.

The court heard Mr Lamponi had a key to the flat and the ferocious attacks could not have been the result of a robbery gone wrong, as there was no sign of forced entry and nothing was stolen, even though objects of value were in clear view.

Both defendants deny the double murder. The case continues.