THIS MOST EVIL OF CRIMES
Judge’s damning words as boy of 16 is found guilty of rape and murder of ‘angel’ Alesha, 6, on Scottish isle
AN ‘evil’ teenager was found guilty yesterday of the rape and murder of six-year- old Alesha MacPhail.
The schoolboy, 16, abducted ‘angelic’ Alesha from her bed in the middle of the night.
His victim’s mother said her ‘world had been ripped away’ by the killer, whose crimes have shocked an idyllic island community. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, showed no emotion as Judge Lord Matthews told him he faced a life sentence.
‘You committed some of the wickedest, most evil crimes this court has ever seen,’ the judge said.
Alesha, who lived in Glasgow, was killed on July 2 last year while enjoying a summer holiday with her father, who lived with his parents on the Isle of Bute.
Her mother Georgina Lochrane, 23, said: ‘I thought that if Alesha was safe anywhere it was on that island, miles from anywhere.’
She told the court yesterday: ‘Words cannot express just how devastated I am to have lost my beautiful, happy, smiley wee girl. I am glad that the boy who did this has finally been brought to justice. Alesha, I love you so much, my wee pal. I will miss you for ever.’
Alesha’s father Robert MacPhail shouted ‘f***ing scumbag’ as the boy was led away to the cells in handcuffs, while other family members broke down in tears.
The teenager faces years in custody after being convicted of abduction, rape and murder, charges he had denied. The horinjuries rific murder and sordid details revealed in the trial have shocked the nation, and particularly Bute, where Alesha had enjoyed Highland dancing and playing on the beach.
She was three days into her planned three-week holiday when she fell asleep watching Peppa Pig on July 1.
A nine- day trial at Glasgow’s High Court heard how the boy went to Alesha’s home looking to get cannabis from her drug-dealing father. He broke into the threebedroom flat and took the little girl from her bed, carrying her along a beach to woodland in the grounds of an abandoned hotel less than half a mile away.
There, he raped and smothered her – inflicting 117 ‘catastrophic’ which a child pathologist said were ‘unlike anything’ he had seen before. The next morning her grandfather Calum woke at 6am to find she was gone.
His partner Angela King posted on Facebook: ‘ Alesha has gone missing from our house please help look for her.’
Alesha’s naked body was found face down in the woods at 8.54am by a member of the public.
Miss Lochrane – who lives 50 miles away near Glasgow – learned of her daughter’s abduction and death from Miss King’s frantic Facebook posts publicising her granddaughter’s disappearance.
Yesterday a jury took three hours to find the boy guilty of the crime after hearing a ‘ mountain of evidence’ against him, including how his DNA was ‘pretty well all over’ Alesha’s body and clothes.
Addressing the emotionless teenager, Lord Matthews said: ‘Alesha MacPhail was a sweet, angelic little girl. She would’ve gone home to her mother looking forward to telling stories to her and her friends.’
Alesha could have grown up to take her own children to the island, he said. ‘Instead of that you came into her life and stole her life.
‘I have no idea why you did this. I do know that the evidence against you was overwhelming.’
He warned the boy his release from jail ‘may never come’.
The MacPhail family said they ‘hope the boy who took her from us is jailed for a long time’.
During his trial, the killer told a ‘pack of lies’ as he blamed the crimes on Toni McLachlan, the girlfriend of Alesha’s father. Mr MacPhail, 26, and Miss McLachlan, 18, both admitted selling cannabis to the boy, who was a family friend.
The 16-year-old, a heavy drinker who regularly smoked cannabis, said he and Miss McLachlan had been ‘meeting up, having sex, smoking joints’ for months – a claim she denied. He alleged they had sex in a garage hours before Alesha was murdered and claimed Miss McLachlan had used DNA from the condom he had worn to frame him.
The court heard Miss McLachlan slept through two phone calls from the teenager at 2am the night Alesha was taken. She then texted him upon finding out Alesha was missing, and he replied: ‘Oh damn am sure she’s not went too far.’
Prosecutor Iain McSporran QC said after the verdict: ‘The loss of such a young child would be hard to bear in any circumstances, but to have her taken in the bestial manner in which Alesha MacPhail lost her life is unfathomable.’
He said he hoped the guilty verdict would remove any doubt that Miss McLachlan could have been involved in the girl’s death.
Mr MacPhail, who split from Miss Lochrane when Alesha was a few months old, is currently on bail for alleged domestic abuse.
A neighbour said he believed Mr MacPhail would routinely beat Miss McLachlan, who was 16 when they began dating, but they remain a couple. Alesha’s killer was reported to police by his mother, an alcoholic, who became concerned he was acting suspiciously. Last night she insisted her son was innocent, adding that he is ‘being kept in a cell on his own for 24 hours a day’ because of fears he will be attacked by other prisoners. The killer will reappear in court for sentence on March 21 and faces a mandatory life term. His name will be put on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely. A decision over whether to lift his anonymity will be made at the High Court in Glasgow today.
‘I’ve lost my happy, beautiful wee girl’