Girl raped and killed after she was groomed for just 2 weeks
Escape bid ended in horrific attack
A GIRL of 15 was groomed on Facebook for just two weeks before being lured to a house where she was imprisoned, then marched into the countryside to be raped and murdered, a court heard. Kayleigh Haywood was held ‘against her will’ for more than 24 hours at the home of Luke Harlow, 27, after he started messaging her on the social network, jurors were told.
She was plied with alcohol by Harlow and his neighbour Stephen Beadman, 29, before trying to escape semi-naked in the dark early hours of a November morning.
She was captured by landscape gardener Beadman, who then took her through the countryside for almost 1.5 miles before he raped and murdered her, Nottingham Crown Court was told.
The teenager, naked from the waist down, was seen by a neighbour being ‘pinned to the tarmac’ by Beadman outside Harlow’s house after she had fled.
But the man thought Beadman was a police officer because of a stripe on the back of his sweatshirt and decided the incident was not suspicious.
The court heard Harlow had lured the girl to his home for a ‘sexual purpose’, telling her to keep the meeting secret.
Kayleigh, who told her parents she was staying with her best friend, was allegedly the ‘last in a line’ of teenage girls he targeted online.
‘He wanted to kidnap them, get them drunk and have sex with them,’ said prosecutor Miranda Moore QC.
In April, Beadman admitted raping and murdering Kayleigh before dumping her body in thick undergrowth in woodland on the outskirts of his home town of Ibstock, Leicestershire.
Harlow, who told police he ‘nodded off’ and had no idea how the pair came to leave his flat, has previously admitted two counts of indecently touching the teenager and one of grooming her. Yesterday, both men went on trial accused of falsely imprisoning Kayleigh at Harlow’s home before she was murdered.
Miss Moore said the teenager, from Measham, Leicestershire, was dropped in Ibstock on the evening of Friday November 13 last year by her father.
But instead of staying with her friend, she met up with Harlow and returned to his flat.
Miss Moore said that between 9pm on the Saturday night, when she last used her mobile phone, and 3.30am the following morning, when Beadman was seen grappling with her outside, something happened to make a ‘drunken, compliant girl become somebody who wanted to get out of that house’.
The prosecutor added: ‘What happened in that property to make her flee into the November night? We say neither man has told the truth about what happened to Kayleigh before she ran out half-naked.
‘She was clearly running away – without her shoes and without her trousers or handbag.’
A neighbour had heard a female scream between 10pm and 10.30pm and another heard three loud bangs.
The court heard Kayleigh’s bra, with Beadman’s DNA on it, was recovered near a forest park yards from the defendants’ homes.
Kayleigh’s mother reported her missing, then found Harlow’s messages on her Facebook account and alerted police.
Harlow and Beadman were initially arrested on suspicion of kidnapping Kayleigh. Beadman initially blamed Harlow for her disappearance, but eventually admitted killing her and directed officers to her naked body, five days after she went missing.
He claimed to remember nothing between kissing Kayleigh in Harlow’s flat in the early hours and grappling with her outside on the footpath 90 minutes later.
He then walked her to the forest park, where he raped her, before marching her through farmland and countryside. He claimed Kayleigh twice tried to escape from him, and that he ended up killing her with a rock after she hit him with a brick.
But Miss Moore said this account was inconsistent with the evidence.
The case continues.
‘She was clearly running away’