nettles

"Stinging nettles are a come again plant. Cow parsley, sorrel too. Strangely you can pick a lot of salads now," he says.

“I also pinch myself or put Deep Heat on so it burns. In trail races I deliberately run through stinging nettles.”

Speaking near the area she was found, now overgrown with brambles, nettles and horse chestnut trees, detective Franc Dannerolle says the teenager’s body was “disposed of like garbage”.

Preparations for the competition have been taking place all week; trimming away nettles, picking up litter and cutting the grass.

He also had to work to sustain the voracious creatures, foraging daily for nettles to feed them.