Justice catches up with a teenager's taunting killer

Paul Hutchinson, 51, was told yesterday he would serve a

minimum term of 25 years for the murder of trainee hairdresser Colette Aram in October 1983.

The 16-year-old was walking to her boyfriend's house in the Nottinghamshire village of Keyworth when she was abducted by Hutchinson.

The former electrician-turned businessman bundled her into the back of a stolen car and beat her about the head with a bottle before raping her.

He then strangled Colette with his bare hands before arranging her body in a nearby field in a sexually-provocative pose, with her bra and blouse tied around her waist.

Her body was found by police the following morning.

Like Soham killer Ian Huntley, he returned to the scene immediately after the murder to watch the police investigation and a month later he sent detectives a "Ripper-style letter", taunting them that they would never catch him.

The case was the first feature of the first episode of the BBC's Crimewatch in June 1984 but Hutchinson was only caught last year after evidence taken from near the murder scene was used to a establish a full DNA profile.

It was then run against the Government's database and was found to match his son's, who was stopped for a traffic offence.

But Hutchinson, who had gone as far as claiming he had cancer to evade capture, planned to pin the crime on his brother. He only changed his plea to guilty last month after fellow inmates in prison called police to say he had confessed.

Hutchinson, who finally admitted the murder at a hearing last month, was sentenced yesterday and told he must serve at least 25 years before he can be considered for parole.

Following the murder he had shaved his head to make it look like he had cancer and left his family's home, claiming he needed treatment for lung cancer. Police believe he was sleeping rough or in a car.

At the time of the murder, he was living only seven streets away from Colette's home, which she shared with her parents, Jacqui and Tony, and brother, Mark.

Ten months earlier he had married Kiaran, his second wife, who has decided to stand by him.

The couple had three children, including the son whose traffic offence and subsequent DNA sample led to his father's arrest and conviction.

After claiming he had recovered from the cancer, Hutchinson seemingly fitted back in to an ordinary middle-class life.

Nottingham Crown Court heard Hutchinson told police when they arrested him that he could not remember the murder, which he described as being "like a dream".

He intended to to blame his dead brother Gerherd, who died in January 2008 but detectives managed to get his DNA profile from a blood serum sample kept by a hospital. When detectives told Hutchinson they had his fingerprints on the letter he sent taunting them a month after Colette's murder, he claimed his brother told him to write it.

Gregory Dickinson QC, prosecuting, said: "Fellow inmates on remand with Hutchinson told police he had said he killed Colette but said that it was the 'spur of the moment'."

Hutchinson stood impassively, supported by a walking stick and wearing dark glasses as a result of diabetes as he listened to the sentence.

Colette's mother, Jacqui Kirkby, 63, sat alongside her ex-husband Tony Aram, 69, and their son Mark, who was 19 when he discovered his sister's body in a field a mile from home.

Outside Nottingham Crown Court, Mrs Kirkby said: "We would have liked Hutchinson to have got 30 years but the British justice system seems to be on the side of the offender rather than the victim."

Jailing Hutchison, Mr Justice Flaux said: "The terror and degradation that this poor girl must have suffered at the hands of a stranger in her last few moments are unimaginable."