A FATHER of four who murdered a teenage girl in a brutal sexually motivated attack has been caught and jailed 32 years after the horrific event.

Melanie Road, 17, was sexually assaulted and died from 26 stab wounds to her chest and back after the attacker pounced on her metres from her home in Bath in the UK as she made her way home from a nightclub in June 1984.

She was stripped and assaulted before being abandoned in a pool of blood and left to die.

Her body was discovered at 5.30am by a milkman and his 10-year-old son.

Christopher Hampton only finally admitted to the “lengthy and brutal” murder of Ms Road, after he was charged following a DNA breakthrough.

Mr Hampton was caught in 2015 after police matched DNA from Melanie’s clothing to Mr Hampton’s daughter, Clare, on the national database.

Clare, 44, was arrested for criminal damage in 2014, and when detectives carried out a renewed search of the database after a cold-case review, Clare’s DNA returned positive for a familial match.

Clare was handed a caution for criminal damage and gave a routine DNA swab to authorities. It was this swab that would find Ms Road’s murderer.

Mr Hampton initially denied the murder but when he was finally arrested, his reply to his wife gave an indication of guilt.

“I’ll see you later,” she told her husband.

“No you won’t,” he replied.

He was due to stand trial this week but in a surprise twist, changed his plea to guilty.

“For a person who clearly knew it was his DNA he remained extremely calm and showed no emotion at all,” said Gary Mason, a retired officer who had returned to the cold-case team.

Sentencing him to life, Justice Popplewell told him: “You murdered and sexually abused Melanie Road in a cul-de-sac in Bath near where you and she lived.

“You were 32. You didn’t know each other. Melanie was 17, a happy, outgoing and sociable girl who at the time of her death was about to take her A-levels.

“It was a life full of promise.

“Only you will know precisely how you approached her and carried out your attack but certain things are plain from the evidence.

“It was a lengthy and brutal attack for your own sexual gratification.

“She was repeatedly stabbed — 26 times in all — with a sharp-edged knife, causing four-inch wounds.

“Eight of the wounds were to her breasts.

“You first stabbed her while she was on her feet on the street on her way home, before chasing her some 30 metres round the corner to the cul-de-sac where she died.”

Following the attack, Hampton married his second wife and had a daughter, Amy, and stepson Darren.

“You married and had a child and lived your family life for all those years knowing the extreme misery you must have inflicted on your victim’s family but you were too callous and cowardly to put an end to their heartache,” the judge told Hampton.

“You will very likely die in prison.”