Chilling CCTV footage captured the moment a killer walked past his teenage victim's mum as she waited on her daughter. Anna Sullivan was picking up her daughter Lily from a night out after receiving a call from her.
She waited in the forecourt of a Pembroke dock for 23 minutes and as killer Lewis Haines walked past her. Tragically 18-year-old Lily was murdered just moments after phoning her mum to ask for a lift home in December 2021.
Haunting footage has now been released by the Crown Prosecution Service, showing the killer calmly walking past Anna's car as she waits, unknowingly witnessing her daughter's killer leave the crime scene.
Wales Online reports that Anna spoke at the sentencing. She said: "He murdered my only child and then walked past my car knowing I was waiting for her."
Haines walked past her car at 3.10am as she waited for her daughter, not knowing that she had been killed just moments earlier. Haines has been jailed for a minimum of 23 years and four months. Anna Sullivan branded Haines "pure evil" for murdering her daughter and dumping her body in a lake, and said she could never forgive him.
She said in a victim impact statement that was read out to Swansea Crown Court: "The events of the night Lily died go over in my mind constantly and I wake up in the night picturing Lily in the water, wondering if she knew what was happening, if she was scared. I wish I had stopped Lily going out that night. I picture the male responsible for Lily's deat,h who I saw in the garage, and wish I'd confronted him.
"He looked me straight in the eyes, knowing what he had done. Knowing I was that close to her, I wish I'd gotten out of my car and walked. I will always wonder if I could have saved her. These thoughts never leave me and I can't stop thinking about it. I have to live with the fact that I will now never know what really happened to Lily that night. I suspect the actual truth will haunt me for the rest of my life."
Other images show Lily walking with her killer through the quiet streets of a Welsh town. Lily had been out with friends and enjoying herself just hours before she was found dead and in a "state of undress" in Mill Pond, Pembroke, close to the town's castle, at 4am on December 17 last year.
Swansea Crown Court heard earlier this week that Haines had spotted Lily Sullivan while on a night out - but been told "she's far too young for you" and was reminded by a friend that he had a girlfriend. The 31-year-old was later seen walking with Ms Sullivan towards Mill Pond - a dark and secluded freshwater reservoir in the town - at 1.58am on December 17 last year.
A woman who lived near the area then recalled hearing a loud scream early that morning - and Haines was later seen in the area acting "strangely" with his head in his hands. Lily's body was later found topless in the water - with a post-mortem examination revealing she had been strangled.
The court heard that Haines returned home to his partner and hysterically told her: "I've strangled somebody, they're in the Mill Pond."
Judge Paul Thomas QC said the murder was motivated by sexual “frustration”, saying: "I have no doubt that some degree of intimacy was intended between them and indeed occurred. Lily of course, tragically, cannot give evidence about what happened in the lane during that period.
"Lewis Haines has chosen, as is his right, not to give evidence at the hearing. I am sure a degree of intimacy occurred in the lane. I am equally sure it did not progress to sexual intercourse or anything near it. I am sure that did not happen because Lily did not want that to happen."
The judge finished his remarks by thanking Lily's family, more than a dozen of whom were sitting in the public gallery. He praised the "dignity" they had shown amid an "excruciating" case. During the hearing, Haines sat in the dock with his head in his hands as the victim impact statement of Lily's mum Anna was read aloud.
She said: “What I can't come to terms with is that the man who killed Lily knew I was waiting for her and passed me by the garage... He chose not to help... He did nothing, which I can't forgive.”
Mrs Sullivan's statement also said that she had suffered 14 miscarriages prior to Lily being born and almost resigned herself to not having any children. She said that when Lily was born, she felt amazing because her daugher "gave purpose to [her] life" and that the pair were incredibly close.
She said: “She was a beautiful girl inside and out. She didn't see that and lacked self-confidence. She always saw the good in people. She was not an angry person or confrontational. She was bright, funny and a talented artist. She was a typical teenage girl who loved clothes and makeup and mostly music. She adored house music. She had just started going out with friends on a regular basis.”
Miss Sullivan’s social media contained a number of poignant posts about misogyny, sexual violence and women being killed by men. One of her Instagram stories contained a photograph taken of floral tributes left for Sarah Everard with a sign that read: “She was just walking home.”
Another post several weeks later listed 80 women who had been killed by men since Miss Everard was murdered by Met Police officer Wayne Couzens.
Others included words such as “Men shouldn’t be making laws about women’s bodies”, “Maybe not all men, but all women”, and a guide on how to recognise if you have been spiked.
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