THE killer of a teenage “wild child” began a life sentence yesterday refusing to reveal where he had buried her body.
Charlotte Pinkney, 16, disappeared nearly a year ago after leaving a party with Nicholas Rose, a 23-year-old scaffolder. Her parents pleaded yesterday for Rose to help them to locate the remains but he remained silent, collapsing after being led from the dock and falling to the floor in tears.
Police believe that Charlotte probably died while fighting for her life after refusing to have sex with Rose, leaving him with scratches on his neck, arms and legs. Her blood was found in his car and on his shoes and a button like the one from her trousers was discovered in the vacuum cleaner that he used to clean his car after she vanished.
Rose, of Ilfracombe, North Devon, denied murdering Charlotte between February 27 and March 8 last year but was convicted by a jury at Exeter Crown Court. Her body has never been found despite more than 50 police searches.
Robert Pinkney and Sara McKee, Charlotte’s divorced parents, said: “No punishment will ever fit this terrible crime and we hope that no release from prison will ever be considered, at least until our precious girl’s remains have been returned to us, her family, and we can finally find some peace.
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“We have waited 11 tortuous months since our daughter’s murder to gain some public acknowledgement of her death. This process has attempted to strip Charlotte of her dignity and, at 16 years of age, she rests today, still denied the dignity of a funeral.”
The court was told that the girl had been to pubs and clubs on the night that she vanished, before attending a house party in Ilfracombe. She left at 4.30am on February 28 in a borrowed car driven by Rose.
Later that morning Rose was seen with the car in a tunnel, where Charlotte’s bag was also found. He was cleaning the interior and, the next day, used a vacuum cleaner on it. One of Charlotte’s boots was found on waste ground less than a minute from Rose’s home.
The court was told that Charlotte was a social drugs user. Her friend Alexa Williams, 22, said that Charlotte could be “quite a wild child.”
Judge Graham Cottle said there must have been a “violent sexual assault”. He told Rose: “At some point you killed Charlotte, a killing which was completely unprovoked. I am satisfied there was a clear link between the killing and a sexual assault on her.”