A SWARM of flies led detectives to the body of a student, which had earlier been missed by officers who searched her home, a court heard.

In Hea Song, 22, was suffocated and stuffed into a cupboard under a bathroom which was sealed with putty, the Old Bailey heard.

But the corpse remained undetected until plumber Paul Milne fixed a sink in the bathroom and saw the insects crawling in and out of a crack in the side of the bath.

He called police, remembering reports that Miss Song, 22, had gone missing from the east London flat four months before.

Officers then found the half-decomposed body after forcing the cupboard open with a crowbar.

The victim's landlord, Kyu Soo Kim, 32, is accused of murdering Miss Song and a second Korean student.

The body of Hyo Jung Jin, 21, was bundled into a suitcase and dumped by a road outside York.

Prosecutor Sallie Bennett-Jenkins said police officers first searched the flat in Augusta Street, Poplar, on January 9 last year after arresting Kim for the death of Miss Jin.

But while they found clothes belonging to Miss Song they did not notice the sealed cupboard which contained her body.

She said: "On March 14, Paul Milne was asked to repair a sink. He noticed several bluebottle flies gathering in a panel at the side of the bath. He recalled a female occupant of the flat was missing.

"Officers arrived at the flat in the early hours of the following morning. They went into the bathroom and removed a panel of the bath.

"They discovered that there was a space underneath the bath that was over a sealed compartment.'

Police struggled for hours to force open the compartment, finally using a crowbar to reveal piles of stinking clothes, with Miss Song's naked body underneath them, wrapped in a duvet.

Miss Bennett-Jenkins said a bag containing two pairs of Miss Jin's shoes was recovered from the compartment.

Kim denies two charges of murder but admits the manslaughter of Miss Song.

The trial continues.

Updated: 10:39 Wednesday, March 19, 2003