Facebook predator lures teenager to her death

Darlington: A predator on the Sex Offenders' Register killed a 17-year-old girl he met and groomed on Facebook after luring her to a secret meeting.

The 32-year-old posed as a 16-year-old boy to befriend Ashleigh Hall on the social networking site. But within hours of their first meeting, the teenager was dead.

The man is said to have bound and gagged her and thrown her into the back of his car. Hours later, he dumped her body in a ditch by a country lane.

Questions

The killing raises serious questions over how effectively the known sex offender was being monitored. As a registered sex attacker he was required to inform police of any change of address.

Checks carried out after his arrest, however, revealed he had moved from his registered home without notifying the authorities.

Ashleigh, who was studying childcare at Darlington College, left her house at 7pm on Sunday, telling her mother she was going to stay at a friend's house and would be back the following afternoon. When she failed to return her mother repeatedly rang her mobile phone, but there was no reply.

On Monday evening, at 5.40pm, traffic officers, alerted by their onboard computer, pulled over a Ford Mondeo being driven without any insurance on the A177 in County Durham. They arrested the driver on suspicion of motoring offences and took him to Middlesbrough police station. He was then booked in and taken to a cell.

The man then told officers that he had killed a girl.

He claimed she had suffocated after he gagged her and insisted it was an accident. He offered to take them to the lane where he had dumped her body in Sedgefield.

The man is believed to have links with Merseyside and Stockton- on-Tees. Police sources said he had previous convictions for sex attacks on young women and was a registered sex offender.

Probe

Forensic officers yesterday continued to examine the scene just yards from a Little Chef restaurant and Travelodge hotel. Detective chief inspector Paul Harker said the body of the girl, who had not been reported missing, could have been there for up to 24 hours.

Ashleigh, who had four sisters, left Hurworth School in Darlington last year after completing her course. The school's headmaster Eamonn Farrar said: "This shouldn't happen to anybody. We need to have a look at it and find out why it's happened and try to make sure that no one else becomes a victim of this kind of incident."