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Georgia Williams killer sentenced to whole-life term
Georgia Williams killer sentenced to whole-life term
(about 7 hours later)
A violent porn-obsessed "sexual deviant" and "potential serial killer" has been given a whole-life jail term for luring a policeman's teenage daughter to his home, before hanging her and abusing her body.
A young shop worker who planned the sadistic murder of a police officer's 17-year-old daughter and then sexually violated her dead body has been told he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Jamie Reynolds, 23, of Wellington, Shropshire, was sentenced at Stafford crown court after previously admitting murdering former head girl Georgia Williams.
Jamie Reynolds, who was obsessed with extreme violent pornography, lured talented head-girl Georgia Williams to his home while his family were away and hanged her.
Mr Justice Wilkie, sentencing, agreed with a psychiatric report that Reynolds, who had meticulously planned and executed his crime on Sunday 26 May while his parents were away, "had the potential to progressing to become a serial killer".
Reynolds, 23, from Wellington in Shropshire, took pictures of the moments before she died, and after her death stripped her, violated her body and took more images.
The judge said Reynolds had plotted his murder "to give sadistic pleasure". He said: "You watched her die in circumstances where you could have saved her – and doing so was a central part of your pleasure.
He sent text messages from Georgia's phone to make her family think she was safe before putting her body in a van and going to the cinema to watch an action film that she had refused to accompany him to. Later he dumped her body in woodland.
"After the killing you took sexual pleasure in her body, then treated her body with contempt, dumping her in a remote area.
Stafford crown court was told that Reynolds had written detailed fantasies about killing Georgia and other girls. In one, called "Georgia's Surprise", he wrote: "Her feet start to kick wildly as she hangs. She dances wildly at the end of her rope."
"You intended to continue to derive sexual pleasure by photographing these events, keeping them with you, and secreting her clothing and jewellery."
David Crigman QC, prosecuting, said Reynolds was a "sexual deviant" who followed the "script" he had dreamed up. "The defendant intended to watch Georgia dance on the end of his rope," he said.
Wilkie said Reynolds had a long-standing preoccupation with violent and sadistic pornography and his victim must have suffered terribly. Continuing to address Reynolds, who stood head bowed with his hands clasped behind his back, he said: "This is not a marginal or borderline case. I am in no doubt the seriousness of your offending, so a whole-of-life term is the starting point."
The sentencing judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, accepted a psychiatric assessment that Reynolds had the potential to become a serial killer. He told Reynolds: "You enjoyed the spectacle of her final ghastly moments as she struggled for life knowing you had betrayed her." The judge also told Reynolds his crime was not an aberration. He had lured at least two other girls back to his home but they had escaped.
He added: "I take very seriously the conclusion of (psychiatrist) Prof Paul Peckitt that you have the potential to become a serial killer."
The court had heard Reynolds showed no signs of mental illness and would have taken "narcissistic and necrophiliac" satisfaction in being in charge of Georgia as she died and after her death. Even the cinema trip was seen as a form of control.
The judge added he was satisfied Reynolds had been obsessed with carrying out his sadistic fantasy for at least five years. "My conclusion is that I am of the opinion that because of the seriousness of this offence no minimum term should apply."
Reynolds joins the likes of serial killer Rose West and Mark Bridger, who murdered schoolgirl April Jones, in the list of prisoners who have been told they will never be released. Wilkie said the full life term was justified because Georgia was in law a child, who had been the victim of a murder with a sadistic and sexual motive.
Prosector David Crigman QC said Reynolds carried out a "scripted, sadistic and sexually-motivated murder" and planned the killing of the 17-year-old meticulously.
The judge took into account a ruling from the European court of human rights earlier this year that whole-life terms, without any prospect of release, amount to inhuman treatment. But he decided that under British law he could still impose the full life term. He acknowledged that the court of appeal in London will look at the issue next month.
Outlining the case before sentencing, Crigman described Reynolds as a manipulative individual and a sexual deviant who has had "a morbid fascination in pornography depicting violence towards young women in sexual context since at least 2008".
During the sentencing hearing, Georgia's father, detective constable Steve Williams, told the court that Reynolds, who admitted murder, killed his daughter for a "few moments of evil gratification".
In May, Reynolds invited Georgia for a photoshoot at his parents' home in Wellington, Shropshire, where he trapped and killed the defenceless teenager. Reynolds then posed her body, both partly clothed and naked, in different parts of the house including on his parents' bed.
He said his wife Lynette is often violently awoken at night by images of what happened to Georgia. He is physically sick when he thinks about what had happened to her. Georgia's sister, Scarlett, struggles to trust anybody.
Georgia's father, Steven – a serving detective with West Mercia police – mother, Lynnette, and sister Scarlett left the courtroom as the prosecution opened its case in graphic and chilling detail, charting what it called Reynolds's "meticulous" planning of the murder, and the disposal of his victim's body.
Williams said that by the time his daughter's body was found it had been ravaged by nature and looked "grotesque" – an image that would haunt him and his wife "for eternity". The family, he said, had been "damned by evil".
Across the room, Georgia's boyfriend, Matthew Bird, gazed at Reynolds as the facts of his crime were laid bare in Crigman's submissions. Throughout the hearing, Reynolds, wearing a two-piece suit, purple shirt and tie, sat slumped in his chair in the dock, gazing down at his hands.
The court heard that Reynolds had more than 16,000 images and 72 videos depicting extreme violence to women. In 2008 he attempted to strangle a 17-year-old girl after asking her to his home. Police were called and Reynolds was given a "final warning" and counselling.
At a hearing earlier this month he pleaded guilty to murdering Georgia, who had spurned his romantic advances. Crigman said at the time of his arrest for murder, Reynolds had 16,800 images and 72 videos of extreme pornography stored on an external computer hard drive, including digitally doctored images of up to eight other women he personally knew in which ropes had been added around their necks.
Two weeks later, Reynolds's stepfather contacted the police and handed in indecent images of women on to which his stepson had superimposed nooses. In February 2013 Reynolds persuaded another girl back to his house and refused to let her out until she began to scream.
Crigman said the defendant had also annotated these images with male genitalia, also referring to the girls in a derogatory manner and daubing some with crude language of a sexual nature.
Prosecutor Crigman described how Reynolds then "groomed and manipulated" Georgia. She had agreed to go his house in May to help him with what he claimed was a photography project. He told her he wanted to recreate a "fake hanging". The court was led through a series of pictures Reynolds took of Georgia before and after he murdered her. Crigman said she would not have died instantly. "He must have stood and watched her die."
Reynolds had also written 40 graphic short stories involving a fatal assault on a woman, "followed by acts of sexual violation", according to Crigman. It also emerged in the prosecution case that Reynolds had written a "script" in which he described in detail trapping and killing a victim.
An inquiry is to look at previous contacts police had with Reynolds.
Crigman said in regards to murdering Georgia, Reynolds – who appeared particularly taken with red-haired women – had followed "a good deal of his pre-written script". Texts and messages between Reynolds and Georgia were read out in which he shared his romantic feelings for the teenager – an advance she rebuffed, telling him in February: "I don't see you in that way. Just stop, I don't want to ruin our friendship. I told you last time, I just wanted to be friends."
Crigman said Reynolds's fascination with Georgia appeared undeterred and he had written a gruesome story on his mobile phone entitled "Georgia Williams in Surprise" in which she died following a sex game. It depicted the victim as a willing participant. That element, Crigman said, could not have been further from the truth.
In May, Georgia accepted Reynolds's invitation to take part in a photoshoot at his parents' house while they were holidaying in Italy. Reynolds had bought items including a rope, learning to tie a noose and attaching it to what Crigman described as a "hanging mechanism" fitted to the loft hatch in the house, above the landing.
He also bought a leather jacket, leather shorts and high heels for Georgia to wear during the "shoot" and in a chilling message beforehand told her he wanted to take a photograph of her "like simulation hanging, but you'd be standing on a box".
"I'd edit that (the box) out on a computer to make it look like you're floating, are you ok with that?" he said. Georgia did not reply, but turned up at the house on the evening of Sunday May 26, telling her parents and sister where she was going and that she would only be a couple of hours.
Crigman said that as she walked the short distance from her parents' home, there was evidence Reynolds watched extreme pornography "to stimulate himself".
After her death, police recovered several seemingly innocuous photographs which they say were taken by Reynolds showing Georgia "happy" and "compliant" and fully clothed, wearing make-up, The final photographs showed her standing on a red recycling box, hands seemingly bound behind her, with the rope hanging above her, Crigman added.
The prosecutor said: "Photo 12 displays the correct time - 8.20pm. Her face still does not depict any sign of alarm and that is in fact the last photo of her alive."
Reynolds was arrested in Glasgow following a manhunt on 29 May after Georgia's body was found in secluded woodland near Wrexham.
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