Granny’s boyfriend admits to killing girl

London Evening Standard/LondonStuart Hazell yesterday changed his plea and admitted the murder of 12-year-old Tia Sharp, saying her family had “suffered enough”.There were gasps of shock and relief from the public gallery where relatives of the schoolgirl were sitting. Tia’s father Steve Carter broke down in tears.Hazell, a former window cleaner, had previously maintained that Tia fell downstairs at the home he shared with her grandmother Christine Bicknell in New Addington, Croydon. Her body was found in the loft a week later.Lord Carlile, representing Hazell, said his client wanted to make it known that “Tia’s family have suffered enough and he did not want to put them through any further stages of this trial or this process”. Hazell was sentenced to life imprisonment. As he was led to the cells someone from the public gallery shouted “chicken”.The hearing had been delayed for more than 45 minutes yesterday at the request of Hazell’s legal team at the start of what would have been the fifth day of the trial. When the court reassembled, Lord Carlile told Justice Nicol he wanted the jury to hear the indictment put again to the defendant. As the charge was read out, Hazell, 37, bowed his head forward so that it was almost touching the strengthened glass surrounding the dock. Asked how he pleaded to the charge that he had murdered Tia, he swallowed hard and muttered “guilty”.Hazell previously claimed that he had panicked after Tia “fell down the stairs” and pretended he knew nothing about her disappearance and helped organise searches for the schoolgirl. But prosecutors say he assaulted her, photographed her naked corpse and hid it in the loft.The body was not found by police until over a week after she vanished and Hazell was arrested. But he pleaded not guilty to murder even in the face of overwhelming evidence, forcing his lover and Tia’s mother to live through the gruesome details that emerged in court.The jury was also shown CCTV footage of Tia’s last hours as she walked with Hazell, seemingly without a care in the world. The pictures, taken last August, showed her shopping with him, then taking a bus towards the house where he lived with her grandmother and where he was to kill her. They showed him meeting Tia at East Croydon station, sitting on a tram, shopping in a Co-op store before taking her final bus journey. The development came after four days of graphic evidence during which Tia’s mother, Natalie Sharp, frequently had to leave the courtroom visibly distressed.