Stepdad ‘murdered girl, 17, to stop her revealing sex abuse’
Mother ‘helped cover-up by telling police she ran away’
A TEENAGER was murdered by her sexually abusive stepfather who then persuaded her mother to pretend she had run away, a court heard yesterday.
Bernadette Walker, 17, is said to have confided in her mother Sarah, 38, that Scott Walker had been abusing her ‘for years’.
Walker, 51, then killed Bernadette and the ‘devious and wicked’ couple concealed what happened, it was alleged. Her body has never been found.
Prosecutor Lisa Wilding QC said: ‘Scott and Sarah were joined in an unholy alliance designed and intended to mislead, divert and pervert the investigation into the disappearance, and ultimately death, of Bea Walker.’
Bernadette, a ‘socially awkward’ teenager whose friendships were mostly limited to people she had only met on social media, was reported missing on July 21 by her mother, who had ten children by seven different men.
The Walkers – they were not married but Sarah had taken Scott’s name by deed poll – told police Bernadette had run away from their five-bedroom council house in Peterborough three days earlier.
But the jury at Cambridge Crown Court heard Bernadette had recently sent text messages to her mother in which she revealed she had been raped and sexually assaulted by her stepfather for around seven years. She also claimed he had planted a camera in her bedroom and bathroom.
In one message, she said: ‘Most of the times was in the games room when you started night shifts.’
The teenager, who was studying photography at Peterborough Regional College, was sent to spend the night with her paternal grandparents on July 17 ‘while things calmed down a little’.
She was collected the following morning by Walker, who was still living in the family home despite him and Sarah having split up and Sarah being in another relationship.
Walker later claimed Bernadette ran out of the car after he stopped to ‘confront’ her about the allegations.
But phone mast records show his mobile was switched off between 11.23am and 12.54pm. ‘The prosecution say that in that hour-and-a-half he killed Bea,’ Miss Wilding said.
Walker allegedly made a nineminute call to Sarah when he switched his phone back on.
Miss Wilding said: ‘The only sensible conclusion that can be drawn from that phone call is that Scott Walker told [Sarah] that he had killed Bernadette and needed her help immediately to cover up her disappearance and death.’ Some of the messages between mother and daughter were read to the jury. In them, Sarah questioned Bernadette’s memory of events, suggested she had been sleepwalking and warned that she would have her children taken away by social services if police became involved. Miss Wilding said: ‘These messages left Bernadette in no doubt her mother did not believe her.’ The defendants are said to have ‘hacked’ the teenager’s social media after she was killed and ‘sent false
‘Hacked her social media’
messages from her phone’, which was ‘designed to leave a false trail’. The jury was told the teenager had previously confided in an online friend about the abuse and described it as ‘ten out of ten serious’. The prosecution said Bernadette no longer communicates with anyone online, has not contacted any friend or family and has not withdrawn money or used a hospital or GP. ‘They [her parents] lied about her disappearance and they were unflinching in their pursuit of their devious and wicked plan,’ Miss Wilding said. ‘All parental responsibility was gone – if it had ever existed.’ Walker denies murder and perverting the course of justice. Sarah Walker denies perverting the course of justice. The trial continues.