Stuart Hazell was jailed for life with a minimum term of 38 years today after finally admitting the murder of schoolgirl Tia Sharp.
The 37-year-old changed his plea on the fifth day of his trial at the Old Bailey yesterday, having forced 12-year-old Tia’s family to sit through days of shocking and graphic evidence, including a sickening picture of her taken after she died.
He had claimed that Tia was killed in an accident when she fell down the stairs, but prosecutors said that the window cleaner sexually assaulted her before murdering her and hiding her body in the attic of the home that he shared with her grandmother Christine Bicknell.
There were sobs and a shout of ‘beast’ from the public gallery as Hazell was sentenced.
Tia’s grandmother Christine Bicknell could be seen crying and hugging a relative. Mr Justice Nicol said: “She was a sparky girl who was full of life but you took that life from her.
All that lay ahead of her — a career, loves and family of her own — will now never be. And the loss of her has been devastating for her mother, her father and all her relatives and friends. “The tragedy of their loss and her death is because of your act in murdering
Tia Sharp. You are responsible.” Hazell, a convicted drug dealer, had lived with Ms Bicknell in New Addington, south London, for more than five years before Tia died. The window cleaner, who had previously briefly dated
Tia’s mother Natalie Sharp, developed a twisted sexual attraction for the schoolgirl, secretly filming her while she was asleep and putting cream on her legs. Hazell murdered
Tia when the pair were left alone on August 2 last year at the New Addington house while Ms Bicknell worked a night shift.
Her blood was found on a sex toy in the house and on his belt, and his semen was on the bed clothes in the bedroom where she slept.
After he murdered the 12-year-old, Hazell wrapped her body in a sheet and layers of plastic and hid it in the loft. It was not found until a week after
Tia died due to two failed police searches of the loft, for which Scotland Yard has since apologised. After finding the body, police then realised that Hazell had a fascination with child pornography, and had searched for obscene material online using terms including “violent forced rape”, “little girls in glasses” and “incest”. His change of plea yesterday meant that
Tia’s family will never hear his explanation of what actually happened on the night she died.
PA