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James Warnock jailed for life for Yiannoulla Yianni's murder | |
(35 minutes later) | |
A man who raped and murdered a teenage girl in 1982 has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years. | A man who raped and murdered a teenage girl in 1982 has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years. |
James Warnock, 56, strangled 17-year-old Yiannoulla Yianni in an attack described as "cruel, brutal and without mercy" at her north London home. | James Warnock, 56, strangled 17-year-old Yiannoulla Yianni in an attack described as "cruel, brutal and without mercy" at her north London home. |
Recorder of London Nicholas Hilliard QC told the Old Bailey Ms Yianni had endured a "terrifying ordeal" at knifepoint. | Recorder of London Nicholas Hilliard QC told the Old Bailey Ms Yianni had endured a "terrifying ordeal" at knifepoint. |
The jury took two hours to convict Warnock, a divorced father of two. | The jury took two hours to convict Warnock, a divorced father of two. |
How a killer was brought to justice after 34 years | |
Ms Yianni, who was known as Lucy, was from a Greek Cypriot family from Hampstead. Warnock lived just half a mile away from their house. | |
He managed to evade justice for 34 years, despite still living in the local community, and was only caught by a chance DNA match. | |
When the roofer was caught sharing indecent pictures of children on the internet last year he gave a routine DNA sample. It matched a profile retrieved from a semen stain at the 1982 crime scene. The match was one in a billion. | |
At the time of Ms Yianni's murder, DNA testing had not been invented and the sample that helped convict Warnock was only fully recovered from a bed sheet in 2003. | |
Sentencing Warnock, Judge Hilliard said: "It is impossible to understand how one human being could do such things to another. | |
"In the process you visited misery beyond measure on those to whom Yiannoulla was, and is, so dear and which will never leave them." | |
Following the verdict, the Yianni family described how Lucy's murder had left them "saturated by grief" although they always believed her killer would be caught. | |
Her brother Rick said: "Thankfully the long arm of the law has reached out from the past to bring this evil being to justice." |