Island summer break ended in tragedy

IT was going to be a summer holiday filled with playing on the beach, bike rides and trips to the park.

Alesha MacPhail was to spend three weeks on the Isle of Bute at the home of her adoring grandparents, who were looking forward to surprising the six-year-old with the bubble machine they had ordered.

Three days into her stay, she was as high as a kite as she returned from a party clutching a balloon and, like most young children, took some persuading to go to bed.

It was the last her family saw of Alesha.

In the early hours of Monday July 2, an intruder crept into her room, took the child from her bed and subjected her to a horrific sexual assault.

The crime would have shocked any community to the core, but no more so than on Bute, the small island in the Firth of Clyde where many people did not even feel the need to lock their doors.

There was further disbelief as a local teenager was charged with Alesha’s rape and murder, a 16-year-old boy who would try to blame her father’s live-in girlfriend for the killing.

A jury at the High Court in Glasgow rejected his story and took just three hours to find the boy.

On July 1, Alesha had fallen asleep watching a Peppa Pig DVD after being put to bed for the last time at around 10.30pm.

When Ms King went to bed around two hours later, she did so having left the flat key in the door.

She routinely did this during the day so that family members could come and go as they pleased.

No-one heard a thing later as Alesha’s bedroom door was opened and the child was snatched and taken down the stairs.

By 9am the next day, Alesha’s body had been found and the family were told to gather at the police station – where they received the news they had been dreading.