A rapist who murdered the Western Australian teenager Hayley Dodd has been jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years.

Francis John Wark, 61, was granted a judge-alone trial in the WA supreme court last year and was convicted last week by Justice Lindy Jenkins.

He showed no emotion as Jenkins sentenced him on Tuesday.

Hayley, 17, was last seen walking along a road near rural Badgingarra, where Wark had lived for 15 years, on 29 July 1999.

Wark lured Hayley into a ute between 11.40am and 12.10pm, murdered her and disposed of her body before 1.36pm when he paid an account at Badgingarra roadhouse while riding his motorcycle to Perth.

Prosecutor Amanda Burrows said on Tuesday that Hayley’s family would never get the peace they sought without a body and described the teenager’s murder as “every parent’s worst nightmare”.

“She was tiny in stature … she was a young girl walking on an isolated, rural road,” she said. “She was abducted, assaulted and disposed of in a way that she was never to be found again.”

Burrows said family members had written eloquent victim impact statements expressing the trauma they had endured over 18 years.

Referring to Wark’s rape conviction in Queensland, Burrows said he had not demonstrated rehabilitation and had continued to be a danger to society, especially women.