It’s only been a year but it honestly feels like forever since I saw her face, heard her voice and gave her a cuddle
Murdered Alesha’s mum reveals plan for vigil on her little girl’s birthday
THE mother of murdered Alesha MacPhail says she will sing Happy Birthday at her daughter’s grave every year, as she prepares to mark another heartbreaking milestone.
Georgina Lochrane will hold a vigil this weekend in Alesha’s hometown of Airdrie to mark what would have been her little girl’s eighth birthday.
And the mum will pay her own special tribute to the youngster on Tuesday, as she imagines what her girl would now be like if she hadn’t been cruelly taken from her last summer, aged six.
Georgina, 24, said: “On her birthday, we will do as we did last year and go up to Alesha’s grave and just spend as long as we can up there with her.
“Last year, we played one of her favourite songs, Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran, and sang Happy Birthday to her.
“I had to stop because it hit me hard and this year will be the same but we will continue to do it for her.
“This week, all I have done is wish her wee beautiful face would come bouncing into the living room, most probably giving me the last-minute changes to her birthday presents or asking if she’s getting a cake.
“I wonder what she would have wanted. Last year, she had her list in well before she passed and she wanted a full gymnastics set in her bedroom – mats, poles, the lot.
“I know it’s only been a year but it honestly feels like forever since I last saw her face, heard her voice and cuddled her.
“I sit and think about how much she would have changed over the year and how grown-up she would be now.”
The vigil will be held in Airdrie’s Coatdyke Park on Sunday. Those who attend are invited to gather across the road from the war memorial from 7.30pm. Everyone is welcome to bring a candle and a pink balloon, to be released at 8pm. Georgina, her partner George Horn and her daughter Courtney, five, faced the first birthday without Alesha three months after her death on July 2 last year.
She had been abducted from her bed at her grandparents’ home on the Isle of Bute, where she had been staying with her dad.
Alesha’s body was found in woodland. She had been raped and murdered by Aaron Campbell, who was 16 at the time.
In the year that has passed, the family has seen Campbell convicted of Alesha’s murder in February, during which he tried to pin the crime on Alesha’s dad’s girlfriend.
Campbell eventually confessed his crime to a psychologist and social worker and was sentenced to a minimum sentence of 27 years, reduced to 24 years last month following an appeal.
I think how much she’d have changed in a year MUM GEORGINA