A MAN accused of killing his ex-partner slept with lots of women to validate himself, a court heard. 

Alberto Fioletti is alleged to have stabbed Stephanie Hodgkinson to death at her Bournemouth home before turning a knife on himself in May this year.

A jury at Bournemouth Crown Court heard that he told his therapist, Barbara Perini, he had inferiority issues because of his 'small penis'.

In the first of their three sessions, which started in April 2023, the defendant said he had been in therapy since he was 14 for his narcissistic personality disorder. 

Fioletti, who was a veterinary surgeon, confessed to self-harming through medication, injections and anaesthetics.

He told Ms Perini that he sent pictures of his self-harm to his mother to ‘punish her for giving him problems’.

In their second session, on April 27, she discovered that Fioletti suffered from inferiority after being mocked as a child in the changing rooms for his small penis.

He told her that he slept with lots of women to validate himself, and at one point was dating three women at the same time.

Ms Perini said Fioletti suffered from rejection and abandonment issues and that he felt that something was wrong with Stephanie if she stayed with him.

The defendant, 31 said he and Stephanie had planned on moving in together but he felt that he was not a ‘priority’.

In their last session on May 9, the defendant said his relationship with Stephanie was not going well, and that following an argument he told her ‘if he killed himself it would be her fault’.

Meanwhile, Kate Brown, Stephanie’s psychotherapist since March 2022, said in a statement read to Bournemouth Crown Court on November 20 that she had been seeking therapy for anxiety following her divorce from a previous relationship.

In November 2022, Stephanie told Ms Brown she had been dating people she had met online and had a positive date with an Italian man.

Ms Brown said Stephanie did not verbalise her doubts about Fioletti until January 2023, when she became concerned about ‘narcissistic elements’ of his personality.

In their last session together on May 8, before her death, Stephanie told Kate that she and Fioletti had an argument where she saw something in his behaviour to be ‘intimating, calculating and somewhat manipulative’.

The defendant has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.