Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Nailed... 40
DNA traps girl’s killer rapist after wrong man was jailed
AN ex-soldier who raped and killed a teenage schoolgirl has been convicted of her manslaughter 40 years on.
Stephen Hough, 58, thought he had got away with the 1976 death of Janet Commins, 15, after seeing another man jailed.
After leaving Flint, North Wales, to join the Army, he moved back, into a house just a few hundred yards from where he had dumped Janet’s body.
But justice caught up with him after his DNA was taken by police last year and it matched semen samples from the case.
The odds of it being from anyone other than Hough was a billion-to-one, a jury at Mold crown court heard. He was convicted yesterday of rape, serious sexual assault and the manslaughter of Janet.
Hough, who was cleared of murder, was in his teens when he attacked Janet. All men in the town aged 22 were quizzed. Hough told police he had been stealing petrol on the night.
Scrap dealer Noel Jones, then 18, admitted manslaughter and was jailed for 12 years. But Mr Jones, 59, told Hough’s trial he had been forced into making a false confession by detectives.
Janet’s uncle Derek Ierston said: “It’s so galling that the person who so maliciously and violently took Janet’s life has been living in our community for all these years. He has had a life, been married and had children, but he stole Janet’s future.” Hough will be sentenced
next week. PRINCE Harry chats to Dunkirk veterans and tells them: “You were heroes and you still are.”
He spoke to survivors of the 1940 evacuation at Kensington Palace before heading to the premiere of the movie Dunkirk.
Find out about the Second World War from Yesterday TV on Freeview 19 and UKTV Play.