Life sentence over murder of Facebook victim Ashleigh Hall
Man jailed for life over kidnap, rape and murder of teenage girl he originally met on Facebook
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By Jack Clark. |  |
Monday, 08, Mar 2010 05:13
By Matthew Champion.
A man has been jailed for life over the kidnap, rape and murder of a teenage girl he had originally met on social networking website Facebook.
Ashleigh Hall was tricked into believing 33-year-old Peter Chapman was a 17-year-old boy called Peter Cartwright.
He was told he would spend at least 35 years behind bars.
Chapman, unemployed of no-fixed abode, ensnared Ashleigh, 17, through a variety of other social networking and chat websites before finally convincing her to meet him, although he said "his dad" would meet her.
The dad was in fact Chapman himself, who kidnapped, raped and murdered Ashleigh - who had told her mother she was going to stay with a friend - before dumping her body in a farmer's field near Sedgefield in County Durham.
Shortly after the murder Chapman was arrested by police for minor traffic offences and during questioning led officers to the spot where Ashleigh's body was hidden.
Ashleigh's mother Andrea broke down in tears in the public gallery as Chapman came into the dock to enter his plea.
Chapman, who had originally expressed an intention to contest the charges, stared at the floor and spoke in a barely audible voice at Teesside crown court as he also pleaded guilty to failing to notify police of a change of address as required by the sex offenders register.
It was revealed after his plea that the 33-year-old has a long history of sexual offending.