Tia’s family has suffered enough says murderer

Convicted drug-dealer Stuart Hazell is today facing a long prison sentence after dramatically changing his plea a week into his trial for killing his step-granddaughter.

He had leaned forward as Lord Carlile QC, defending, asked for the charge to be put again yesterday. There was a slight pause, a hesitation, when he was asked to plead, before he said “guilty” as gasps from the public gallery rang around the courtroom.

The 37-year-old window cleaner, who is the former partner of the schoolgirl’s grandmother Christine Sharp, hung his head in the dock as jurors were asked to formally find him guilty.

Lord Carlile said his client wanted to make it known that “Tia’s family have suffered enough and he did not want to put them through any further stages of this trial or this process”.

The court heard Hazell, who was looking after Tia the day she disappeared but denied abducting and killing her, had a number of previous convictions including burglary and theft.

Other convictions included racially aggravated common assault in 2002, dealing cocaine in 2003 and possession of a machete in a public place in 2010, for which he was jailed for 12 months.

The development came after four days of graphic evidence during which Tia’s mother, Natalie Sharp, frequently had to leave the courtroom, visibly distressed.

The prosecution case included a grotesque photograph of a girl alleged to be Tia after she died. In the shot, a naked girl, whose face cannot be seen, is posed on all fours on a bed.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Sharp said: “I gave the ultimate trust to Stuart and there is so much that I want to ask him.

“Sometimes I feel pity, that I want to hurt him, but I can never hurt him like he has hurt me.”

She said Tia was her grandmother’s “mini-me” and “her life” and wrote about how Tia’s birth had changed her life for the better, giving her “a reason to keep out of trouble”.

“Since Tia was taken, I have lost my trust in everyone,” she said. “It is too hard for me to believe that she is really gone. I try to think of her on a sleepover at a friend’s house.

“Jack, my eldest son, who is three, asked me just this week if Tia was coming home from school soon. I’ve had to tell him the truth. It really made him cry.

“I told him that Tia is a star in the sky and now, when we go up to say goodnight, we look out of the bedroom window and speak to the star, the one that was bought in Tia’s name.

“I breathe for my children. I fear anyone hurting my boys. I fear that if anyone touches my sons or does anything to them, what I might do, I am so scared and angry.”

During the hunt for missing Tia, Hazell denied abducting her, saying she was “like my own daughter”. He said at the time: “My previous has got nothing to do with it. Everyone’s got a shady past. Did I do anything to Tia? No I bloody didn’t. I’d never think of that.”

He described Tia as “a happy-go-lucky golden angel” and said there had been no problems at her “loving home” before she vanished.

Hazell later claimed Tia had died after falling down the stairs.

Speaking after the case, Detective Chief Inspector Nick Scola from the Metropolitan Police said he hoped the conviction would “bring some closure” for Tia’s family. “Hazell’s conviction will never bring Tia back and her family will have to live with her loss for the rest of their lives,” he said. “Tia was murdered by a man who had gained the trust of Tia’s family and who, on that day, was tasked with looking after her while her grandmother was at work.

“The evidence was overwhelming and clearly Hazell realised he had no choice but to plead guilty.

“However, he put Tia’s family through a week of heart-breaking evidence in court and I wish for their sakes he had admitted his guilt sooner.”

Hazell was due to be sentenced this morning. In mitigation, Lord Carlile QC told the court his client did not want to cause any more suffering to Tia’s family and so changed his plea as “an act of remorse”, in the “bravest decision” he had made. He said he was not trying to “make excuses” and told the court: “There is no greater loss that can occur to a family than the loss of a child who is just about to enter her prime.”

Lord Carlile added: “He did not embark to kill for sexual or sadistic motivation. Of course he accepts that whatever happened that night he killed her with the requisite intention to justify a conviction for murder.”