A man has admitted carrying out the sexually motivated murder of a teenage college student in Greater Manchester.

Mark Buckley, 51, attacked 18-year-old Ellen Higginbottom before taking her laptop and mobile phone and leaving her for dead near a field close to Orrell water park in Wigan.



Ms Higginbottom was reported missing after failing to return home from Winstanley College in Orrell on 16 June. Her body was found the next day. A postmortem examination confirmed she died from multiple neck wounds.

On Monday, Buckley, from Preston, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to the murder at Manchester crown court.



Mark Hayton QC, defending Buckley, asked the judge, David Stockdale QC, to adjourn the case until next week for sentencing.

Neil Fryman, prosecuting, told the court there was a sexual motivation for the murder and that it was premeditated.



David Steele, 47, of Billinge, appeared alongside Buckley charged with perverting the course of justice and handling stolen goods. He was not asked to enter a plea after an application by his lawyer, Brian McKenna. He will next appear in court on 6 October.

Two other defendants, Dean Speakman and his partner, Vicki Calland, both 30 and from Billinge, each pleaded guilty last month to a single charge of perverting the course of justice and handling stolen goods.



Both admitted they handled the mobile phone, laptop and other property belonging to Ms Higginbottom and that they destroyed the property believing she had been murdered.



Stockdale remanded Buckley for sentencing on 14 September; Speakman and Calland will also be dealt with at this hearing.



After her murder, Ms Higginbottom’s family paid tribute to the psychology student, who loved animals and enjoyed cooking.



In a statement released at the time, they said “she had astonishingly reinvigorated her love of learning over the last few months after some difficult times” and recalled her “beauty, love and kindness”.