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Man admits murdering Wigan student Ellen Higginbottom Man admits sexually motivated murder of Wigan student
(35 minutes later)
A man has admitted murdering a teenage college student at a Greater Manchester beauty spot. A man has admitted carrying out the sexually motivated murder of a teenage college student in Greater Manchester.
Mark Steven Buckley, 51, pleaded guilty at Manchester crown court to the murder of 18-year-old Ellen Higginbottom in Orrell, near Wigan. Mark Buckley, 51, attacked 18-year-old Ellen Higginbottom before taking her laptop and mobile phone and leaving her for dead near a field close to Orrell water park in Wigan.
She was reported missing by her family after failing to return home from studying at Winstanley College on Friday 16 June. Higginbottom was reported missing after failing to return home from Winstanley College in Orrell on 16 June. Her body was found the next day. A postmortem examination confirmed she died from multiple neck wounds.
Her body was found close to Orrell water park in the early hours of the next day. A postmortem examination found she died from multiple wounds to the neck. On Monday, Buckley, from Preston, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to the murder at Manchester crown court.
Mark Hayton QC, defending Buckley, asked the judge, David Stockdale QC, to adjourn the case until next week for sentencing.
Neil Fryman, prosecuting, told the court there was a sexual motivation for the murder and that it was pre-meditated.
David Steele, 47, of Billinge, appeared alongside Buckley charged with perverting the course of justice and handling stolen goods. He was not asked to enter a plea following an application by his lawyer, Brian McKenna. He will next appear in court on 6 October.
Two other defendants, Dean Speakman and his partner Vicki Calland, both 30 and from Billinge, each pleaded guilty last month to a single charge of perverting the course of justice and handling stolen goods.
Both admitted they handled the mobile phone, laptop and other property belonging to Higginbottom and that they destroyed the property believing she had been murdered.
Stockdale remanded Buckley for sentence on 14 September ; Speakman and Calland will also be dealt with at this hearing.
After her murder, Higginbottom’s family paid tribute to the psychology student, who loved animals and enjoyed cooking.
In a statement released at the time, they said Higginbottam
“had astonishingly reinvigorated her love of learning over the last few months after some difficult times” and recalled her
“beauty, love and kindness”.