This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

A serial sex offender was today sentenced to life in prison after he admitted kidnapping, raping and murdering a teenager whom he ensnared using a fake profile on Facebook.

Peter Chapman was told he must serve at least 35 years in prison by judge Peter Fox today, following the killing of Ashleigh Hall, who was 17.

The judge said he was "a very great danger to young women, and for what it is worth, I cannot foresee your release".

Sentencing him at Teesside crown court, the judge said Chapman had been the architect of "an evil scheme, very carefully brought, and with considerable detail, to trap your victim".

The killer had claimed to be a handsome teenager and used the profile to lure the teenager into meeting him after he befriended her through Facebook.

In reality, he was an emaciated, 33-year-old convicted double rapist, who was almost toothless and living in his car.

Graham Reeds QC, for the prosecution, told the court Chapman had claimed to be called DJ Pete or Pete Cartwright.

"The photograph is not of him. It is of a barechested and good-looking boy, who is apparently in his late teens."

Chapman was, in fact, "a somewhat plainer-looking man who could pass for being rather older than his 33 years. When she met him on 25 October last year, he kidnapped, raped and murdered her."

The prosecutor described how the teenager suffered from low-esteem.

The night before Ashleigh's body was found, she had told her mother she was going to stay with a friend.

In order to entice her into his car, Chapman sent her a text message saying the boy's father would pick her up. He texted her to say: "My Dad's on his way, babe."

She replied: "He's here, babe." Once in the car, he attacked her.

Ashleigh's body was found dumped in a farmer's field near Sedgefield, County Durham, in October. Her arms were bound and tape was put over her face, suffocating her to death.

Chapman was arrested by chance in a separate police inquiry after a nationwide alert went out to trace his car after he had failed to comply with the requirements of his sex offenders' registration. During initial interviews he told police they could "crush his car". He later lost his nerve and confessed to murder.

Seen on CCTV at Middlesbrough police station, he tells a custody officer: "I killed someone last night. I need to tell somebody from CID where the body is. It hasn't been reported yet."

Detective Inspector Mick Callan, head of Durham police's major crime team, said: "The truth is he is a predatory sex offender who, through the tentacles of the internet, could reach out to the young and the vulnerable.

"He knows full well that using his real name and picture would not grab the attention of any young woman for a moment. But by using the picture of a good-looking young man as a cover he has woven a web of attraction and deceit that has sadly had a murderous ending."

Chapman, who was brought up by his grandparents in Stockton-on-Tees, has a history of sexual offending. He was the subject of several sexual assault investigations, beginning when he was 15. Four years later, in 1996, he received a seven-year prison sentence for raping two prostitutes at knifepoint during separate incidents and was released in 2001.

The following year Cheshire police questioned him over the rape and kidnap of a prostitute in Ellesmere Port. The case was discontinued.

Speaking outside court Andrea Hall, Ashleigh's mother, said the authorities should have done more to monitor Chapman's whereabouts after his release from prison. "They are the sort of people who should be tagged and they should be kept an eye on all the time. They shouldn't be allowed out into society anyway."

Mrs Hall, 39, also said it was wrong that Chapman, as a registered sex offender, was able to post online as a teenage boy.

"He took somebody else's photo and put it on the internet and has been posing behind this photo. It is awful to think that there's actually a boy out there and he is using his photo to prey on young girls."

Mrs Hall, who has three other daughters, said she was powerless to stop Ashleigh going out on the night she met Chapman. "What could I have done?" she asked. "She was 17. You don't stop your kids from going out."

She recalled the horror of hearing a police officer answer her daughter's phone, having attempted to contact her mobile on 30 occasions. She said: "I could understand it if Ashleigh had died because of illness but to actually have someone take someone's life is just unbearable."