A Tesco worker tried to cover up the death of a chef, who died in his flat, after they had consensual chemsex together.
Neil Cuckson, 32, even attempted to bury Hiran Chauhan's dead body in a park opposite his home after leaving him in the bed where he died for three days.
Cuckson, originally from Northern Ireland, met Manchester man Hiran on Grindr before the 24-year-old took an Uber to his flat in Salford in the early hours of the morning.
A court heard that the pair had sex and that Cuckson injected Hiran with crystal meth and GHB.
According to Manchester Evening News , when Cuckson woke up the following morning Hiran was dead in the bed beside him.
Over the next week, Cuckson frantically tried to cover up Hiran's death, storing his body in his third floor flat for days, and sleeping on the floor while Hiran remained on the bed.
Cuckson continued to go to work at Tesco in Manchester city centre, until he decided to buy a car from Gumtree, specifically to remove Hiran's body.
After moving Hiran from his third floor flat to his new Suzuki, Cuckson realised he couldn't lift Hiran's body into the car.
He then decided to bury him in the park opposite his flat.
Hiran's body wasn't found until almost a week later when schoolchildren found it wrapped in bedding and plastic sheets.
A huge missing person's appeal was launched in a bid to find Hiran, who was last seen on July 2, 2019, and distressed members of his family even travelled from around the country to help.
While being interviewed by police, Cuckson said: "I didn’t kill him, I didn’t mean to, I’m not a murderer I’ve had a s*** life."
In court, Cuckson said Hiran appeared to be "naive" about drugs, saying he didn't know slang terms.
He said they both took GHB together and had consensual sex, before Cuckson injected Hiran and later himself with crystal meth.
He told police that after waking up the following morning, he later realised Hiran was dead and began to panic.
CCTV later recovered showed that on July 8, before 2am, Cuckson tried to move Hiran's body.
The usual toxicology tests conducted by pathologists to conduct investigations into how people have died proved inconclusive, because Hiran's body was decomposed.
Judge Conrad said: "Toxicology vital to this case was frustrated. That has added greatly to the grief of his family.
"They will never know exactly how, and in what circumstances Hiran Chauhan, whom they loved so much, actually died."
Defending, Michael James said Cuckson, a retail manager, is sorry for what he did.
Mr James said Cuckson became stuck in a "bizarre situation" because of the decisions he made.
He said Cuckson co-operated with the police after he was arrested, and helped officers retrieve Hiran's phone from some bushes in the city centre where he had dumped it.
Mr James said Cuckson realises he "can never apologise enough", but that he has shown "real remorse".
Sentencing, Judge Alan Conrad QC told Cuckson: "To save your own skin, and to thwart a police investigation, you embarked on an elaborate plan to dispose of his body."
Cuckson pleaded guilty to administering a poison or noxious substance so as to endanger life, perverting the course of justice, preventing a lawful burial, supplying class A drug crystal meth, supplying class C drug GBH.
He was jailed for six years.
