My Lily was exploited by pure evil
Mother’s harrowing words as her 18-year-old daughter’s killer is jailed for life
THE mum of a teenager strangled by a man after she refused to have sex with him in an alleyway branded the killer “pure evil” as he was jailed for life yesterday.
Lily Sullivan’s mother Anna said she would never forgive Lewis Haines for murdering her 18-yearold daughter and dumping her body in a pond.
Minutes after the killing Haines walked past Anna as she waited to pick her daughter up.
In a statement read to Swansea Crown Court yesterday, Anna said: “The person responsible will have taken advantage of the fact Lily would have seen she was in danger and this was exploited by pure evil.
“I feel absolutely broken and wish I could go back in time and stop Lily going out and I wish I could protect her from the evil she met that night.”
Anna added: “The events of the night go over in my mind constantly and I wake up picturing Lily in the water, wondering if she knew what was happening, if she was scared.
“I picture the male responsible, who I saw in the garage, and wish I’d confronted him. He looked me straight in the eyes, knowing what he had done. Knowing I was that close to her, I wish I’d gotten out of my car and walked. I will always wonder if I could have saved her.
“I have mixed emotions daily. I can feel angry, confused, sad, overwhelmed. It’s all so senseless.”
The court heard Lily was an only child, born after Anna miscarried 14 times. Her mum said: “Lily gave me purpose. She was my little bit of normal in difficult circumstances. We had a very special bond.”
Anna said she now has panic attacks and struggles to sleep as she thinks about Lily’s final moments.
Haines, 31, from Lamphey, Pembrokeshire, admitted murdering the teenager after he met her at a nightclub in Pembroke, south-west Wales, just before last Christmas.
But the father of one denied it was sexually motivated.
The pair kissed after meeting in the Out nightspot on December 16 and went to a nearby alleyway where they became more intimate.
Lily was found early the next day face down and topless in Mill Pond, a two-mile-long freshwater reservoir near the town.
Judge Paul Thomas QC concluded Haines killed her after she rebuffed his sexual advances. Sentencing him to a minimum term of 23 years and four months, the judge added: “His intention was to silence her. He didn’t want anyone to know what had happened in the lane.”