A housemate was “really scared” and locked her bedroom door after hearing a call for help the night a 25-year-old was killed in her home, a court has heard.

Adrienn Gronai was woken up by a “shriek” she believes was made by her Hungarian housemate, Alexandra Kovacs, who was found dead in Mill Hill last July.

Telling the jury at Central Criminal Court what she heard in the early hours of July 18, Miss Gronai said: “It was a shriek of a woman and in Hungarian, she said help.”

This lasted for approximately two seconds before she heard another sound coming from within the house in Lee Road, Mill Hill, which she and Miss Kovacs shared with a number of male and female Hungarian nationals.

Miss Gronai said: “It was a very dull sound, as if a head was pushed to the wall or like a knee knocks the wall, or a head knocks the wall.”

She told the court she believed it was Miss Kovacs’s voice she had heard, and she felt afraid.

She continued: “I was really scared. I locked the window, I locked my bedroom door and I pulled the cover on my head.”

Miss Gronai was planning to move out of the house the following weekend and had planned to borrow a suitcase from a fellow tenant, who had left it in the living room.

The next day Miss Gronai noticed the suitcase was missing.

The jury also heard from two other housemates, Balasz Gaspar and Erik Molnar, both of whom were woken by a female’s voice at approximately 3am the night Miss Kovacs was killed.

Mr Gaspar said: “It was like someone was talking or shouting."

The following day he spoke to Mr Molnar about the noise they had heard, before noticing Miss Kovacs’s bedroom door was locked.

Mr Molnar then climbed up to look through her window and saw that no one was in the room.

Mr Gaspar said: “We were pondering what may have happened but we left it at that because even then we didn’t think it was something really bad.”

On July 21, police recovered Miss Kovacs's body in a large, black suitcase in bushes in Dollis Valley Green Walk.

Laszlo Gyarmati, 29, of Station Road, Finchley, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but denies murdering Miss Kovacs.

The trial has been adjourned until Thursday afternoon.