Aaron Campbell, the 16-year-old who abducted, raped and murdered six-year-old Alesha MacPhail on the Isle of Bute, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 27 years.
Before the sentencing at the high court in Glasgow on Thursday morning – which was being livestreamed for what was believed to be the first time in the UK – Campbell’s lawyer told the court he had finally admitted responsibility for the crimes during interviews for background reports ordered by the judge.
There were emotional scenes in the courtroom as the judge, Lord Matthews, read out details from the reports of a forensic clinical psychologist and a criminal justice social worker, which revealed Campbell’s “breathtakingly callous” attitude to his crimes, later described as “shattering” by supporters of Alesha’s family.
Members of the girl’s family sobbed as the judge detailed the contents of the clinical psychologist’s report in which Campbell confessed: “all I thought about was killing her once I saw her”.
He told the interviewing psychologist that in the 12 months before the killing he had been entertaining the thought of “doing something extreme”. Having found the child sleeping when he went to her family’s flat in the middle of the night to buy cannabis from her father, Robert MacPhail, Campbell said he felt it presented “a moment of opportunity”.
As Campbell was led away, other family members called from the public benches that he should “look over his shoulder”, while Alesha’s mother Georgina Lochrane shouted that the killer was a “disgusting, vile rat”.
Lord Matthews said that in setting the term of 27 years, necessarily shorter than if Campbell had been an adult, it was clear to him that “reintegration or rehabilitation are remote possibilities”.
He added that it would be for others to decide if Campbell would ever be released but emphasised there was much work to be done before that could ever happen.
Matthews said the reports presented Campbell as a “cold, calculating, remorseless and dangerous individual … completely lacking in victim empathy”.
He referred to Campbell’s admission that at points during the trial he had had to stop himself laughing and that he had described himself as “quite satisfied with the murder”.
Before the sentencing, defence QC, Brian McConnachie, noted it was highly unusual for an individual to admit their guilt at this stage; throughout the trial, Campbell maintained his innocence and attempted to blame the crimes on Robert MacPhail’s girlfriend.
The judge described this as a “cruel travesty of the truth” and reiterated the woman he blamed, Toni McLachlan, was “completely innocent”.
McConnachie said the clinical psychologist had apologised “for the pessimism that is apparent throughout this report”, adding that Campbell presented a range of traits relating to psychopathy and sexually harmful behaviour.
He added Campbell “understood in a limited way that there is no certainty that he will be released at any stage”.
He said, despite evidence in the reports that Campbell had “a less than ideal upbringing”, there could be no mitigation offered for the crimes.
Campbell was found guilty of the abduction, rape and murder of the schoolgirl last month. After the verdict, the judge lifted a ban on naming the schoolboy after a legal bid by media outlets.
Alesha, from Airdrie in North Lanarkshire, had arrived on the island a few days earlier for a three-week summer break. Her family last saw her at about 11pm on 1 July. Her grandmother Angela King reported her missing at 6.23am the next day and appealed for help on Facebook, prompting a frantic search. A member of the public found Alesha’s body about half a mile away at about 9am.
During the two-week trial, the jury heard Campbell took Alesha from her bed in the seafront flat where she was staying with her father and grandparents, using a knife to silence her, and carried the child to the nearby grounds of a disused hotel where he raped and smothered her.
The pathologist who examined Alesha’s body told the court the girl had sustained “catastrophic” injuries, some of which he concluded had been inflicted while she was still alive.
The jury was told of overwhelming scientific evidence linking Campbell to the murder, with a match for his DNA detected on 14 different parts of Alesha’s body, as well as a match for his semen indicating that he raped the child. Fibres believed to be from his trousers were also found on Alesha’s clothing.
Jurors were shown CCTV of a figure on the shoreline who a number of witnesses said appeared to be carrying a heavy object. The timing matched other footage, which showed the killer leaving his family home on three occasions during the night.
The killer’s mother drew the police’s attention to her son, after viewing home CCTV footage that showed the teenager coming and going from his family home on three occasions during the night the child went missing.
During the trial it also emerged Alesha’s father had regularly sold cannabis to the killer, and thaton the night of the abduction Campbell had messaged him attempting to buy more of the drug.
Alesha’s mother, Georgina Lochrane, has said she wants to visit Campbell in prison. In an interview with the Daily Record last week, she said: “I just want to know, why her? Why Alesha? I have questions that I need answered and he is the only one who can answer them.”
After the sentencing, Ann Marie Cocozza of the peer support charity Families Against Murder and Suicide, which has been working with Lochrane, said: “Today there is so much for her to take in. She is a broken woman.”
Referring to the further detail about Campbell’s motives revealed in court on Thursday morning, she added it was “shattering for any family to hear.
Why did he put them through the trial? There are no words to explain what the trial has done to the family and to the public.”
