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Tia Sharp death: Stuart Hazell accused of killing her after sexual assault
Tia Sharp death: Stuart Hazell accused of killing her after sexual assault
(about 3 hours later)
The man accused of murdering Tia Sharp killed her after sexually assaulting her, a court has heard.
The man accused of murdering a 12-year-old girl, whose decomposing body was found in his loft, secretly filmed her to satisfy his sexual interest in the weeks before she was killed, the Old Bailey was told on Tuesday.
Stuart Hazell, the former boyfriend of Tia's grandmother, allegedly had a sexual attraction for the 12-year-old, jurors at the Old Bailey were told on Tuesday.
Stuart Hazell, 37, went to extensive lengths to hide the body of Tia Sharp after subjecting her to a sexual assault and smothering her in August last year, the jury was told.
Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said that a sex toy with Tia's blood on it was found at her grandmother's house after she died.
On the opening day of his murder trial, the court heard that Hazell had repeatedly accessed paedophile images of prepubescent girls on his mobile phone. Police also found two memory cards from Hazell's cameras which contained a series of secret photographs and videos of Tia, including footage of her sleeping and of her putting moisturiser on her legs.
Hazell also took a photograph of the naked 12-year-old dead on her bed, prosecutors alleged. Edis showed jurors at the Old Bailey the image, allegedly of Tia, although the girl's face cannot be seen, on her bed at her grandmother's house in south London.
Hazell had tried to hide one of the memory sticks on the top of a door frame at his home, the court heard. After Tia was killed, he tried to create the lie that she had run away from home.
Blood could be seen on the bedclothes in the picture, said to have been taken in the early hours of 3 August, the night Tia died.
Tia's mother, Natalie Sharp, left the court visibly distressed as the prosecution opened the case against Hazell – who denies murder.
Edis said: "The prosecution case is that Stuart Hazell had a sexual attraction for Tia Sharp, that there was some form of sexual assault, something of that kind, and that was the reason he killed her."
She remained outside court when the jury was shown the last image taken by Hazell on his mobile phone – a picture he then copied to his camera and was found stored on one of the memory cards. The photograph was of a naked, prepubescent girl, whom the prosecution said was Tia Sharp, lying on her bed at her grandmother's home in New Addington, Croydon. There is blood visible on the bedding in the photograph, and in the corner of the picture the hand of one of the girl's dolls can be seen. The photograph was taken after Tia's death between 3am – 6am on 3 August last year and had been posed by Hazell, the prosecution said.
Edis told the jury it would have to decide whether Hazell was guilty of murder, or whether Tia died in an accident.
Andrew Edis, QC, prosecuting said: "Tia Sharp died a sudden and we suggest violent death … The prosecution case is that Stuart Hazell had a sexual attraction for Tia Sharp. There was some form of sexual assault, and that was the reason he killed her."
Tia died on the night of 2-3 August , but her body was found on 10 August, the court heard, in the loft at her grandmother's house.
Edis said Hazell tried to create a lie that Tia had run away from home last August and went to great lengths to hide her body and other items in the loft of his home. He wrapped the child's body in a sheet, before sealing it into a bin bag with sticky tape, and hiding it in the attic. "It had been meticulously wrapped and hidden."
Edis said: "The issue in the end for you to decide will be this. Has the evidence made you sure that Tia Sharp was murdered or do you think it may have been an accident?
Edis said the jury would hear the suggestion that Tia had died in an accident after falling downstairs and that Hazell had panicked and not known what to do. He said: "We know when she died, we know where she died, we know this – there were only two of them in the house at the time. So was it murder or may it have been an accident.
"What we know is that after she died he put her in the loft. That's not what you would normally do with someone who has suffered an accident. Generally speaking, if someone has an accident and you are concerned about their health you call an ambulance."
"What we know is that after she died he put her into the loft – now that is not what you normally do with someone who has suffered an accident."
He warned jurors they would find some of the evidence in the case distressing.
Hazell also stored another bin bag containing incriminating items in the loft, the prosecution said. The contents included his T-shirt which was found to have the child's blood on it and a pair of his spectacles which were broken and carried one of Sharp's fingerprints on a lens. "The idea was to say that Tia Sharp had left home … this was the lie that was being prepared," said Edis.
Hazell, 37, of New Addington, south London, is charged with killing the schoolgirl between 2-10 August last year. He denies murder.
Sharp – who regularly stayed with her grandmother Christine Bicknell and her boyfriend Hazell – was reported missing on 3 August last year by her grandmother. When the press laid siege to the house after Tia's disappearance he was effectively under house arrest and his plan to move the body somewhere else became extremely difficult, the court heard. Tia's body was found in the loft a week later. The decomposition was such that no cause of death was ascertained, although a pathologist will tell the court that smothering was the most likely form of death.
Her body was found in the loft of her grandmother's house in New Addington a week after she went missing.
Three days after he killed her – while the search for the child was ongoing – he had tried to access an incest/sex website on his phone, the court was told.
Edis told the jury of seven men and five women that the loft had been inspected by police twice before Tia's body was finally found.
Hazell was arrested on Friday 10 August after the child's body was discovered. He was remanded in custody at Belmarsh prison in London, where, the court heard, he spoke to a prison officer.
"They only found it, I am afraid, because it had started to smell. "It was quite well hidden. It had been moved up and then across within the loft space."
"He told the officer: 'It wasn't sexual. I am not a nonce or a pervert,'" said Edis. "He said he had been playing with her on the top of the stairs and she fell down and broke her neck."
He said Tia's body had been "carefully wrapped" in a sheet first and then bin bags, then sealed with sticky tape. "As you can imagine, that's not a particularly easy thing to do with a dead human being, but that's what had been done."
In a letter to his father written from prison, Hazell said: "If I had a chance I would end it here. I've got no money, no fags, no hope. It's the Hazell curse."
The court heard that two memory cards were found in the house, one in the kitchen and one hidden on top of a doorframe.
The case continues.
They contained "extensive pornography", the jury was told, including two "grade one" images of sexual abuse of under-age girls, and two "extreme images" featuring bestiality.
There were also 11 still images of Tia sleeping, and three video clips of her sleeping in her bedroom.
There were also "professional" pornographic images of young girls performing sex acts, the court heard.
Edis said internet searches on Hazell's phone showed searches of a site that was popular with paedophiles, with searches including the phrases: "naked little girlies", "young, young girlies", and "schoolgirl nudes".
He said Hazell had also visited a pornographic website on 6 August – while Tia's body was in the loft.
Family members were visibly upset by the descriptions, several crying in the public gallery.
Edis told the jury Tia had her own BlackBerry mobile phone and had used Blackberry messaging, or BBM, to speak to a friend until 12.42am on 3 August. "After that, the prosecution say, she did not use her mobile phone ever again," he said.
He said it seemed sensible to suggest she had died after that time, and told the court it is said that the photo of her allegedly dead on the bed was taken at the earliest at 3am – more likely at about 6am that day.
A pathologist who examined the body, as well as the photograph, said marks on Tia's body suggested she had been moved after she had died, and "posed" into the position seen in the photograph, Edis said.
Hazell's semen was found on the bedclothes, and trace amounts of sperm on nightwear, the court heard.
Edis told the court: "First, there's a dead girl in the loft who died in that house that night.
"Second, there's a photograph of an apparently dead girl taken in that house that night at three or six in the morning or thereabouts and taken, it would appear if she was dead, by somebody who wanted to photograph her in that state for the purposes of sexual excitement.
"She was, it would appear, injured at the time of the photograph, hence the blood.
"Remember, that her grandmother was not by any means always at home when she would stay at that house because of her job," Edis added. "The prosecution say that this is clearly no accident."
The court heard that the press, police and local residents "laid siege" to Tia's grandmother's house in the days after she was reported missing.
Jurors were shown an interview that Hazell gave to ITN on 9 August in which Edis alleged he was "playing the role of bereaved grandparent who wanted nothing more than the child to be found and to come home".
In the broadcast Hazell insisted Tia was like his own child, described her as "a golden angel" and said he did not know what had happened to her.
Later Hazell told a prison officer that he was not "a nonce", and that Tia had fallen down the stairs while they were playing and broken her neck, the court heard.
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