A judge has found that a man murdered an 18-year-old woman after becoming sexually "frustrated".
Lewis Haines strangled Lily Sullivan in the early hours of December 17 last year after meeting her at Out nightclub in Pembroke. Her body was later found topless in the Mill Pond freshwater reservoir, Swansea Crown Court heard.
Haines denied the murder was sexually motivated but Judge Paul Thomas QC said the 31-year-old father was "fuelled by drink" when he attacked Lily after she "resisted", forcibly removing her crop top and strangling her. He could face a minimum term of 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on Friday.
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The judge also rejected the claim that Haines attempted to save Lily from the water. As the judge read his findings, Haines crouched in his seat with his head buried in his hands, while Lily's family nodded in the public gallery.
Judge Thomas said both Haines and Lily had been drinking heavily that night. He said he was sure that "a degree of intimacy occurred" in the alleyway near the reservoir after they had left the club.
But the judge added: "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."
Judge Thomas said there was "no indication of distress" when Lily received a call at 2.47am from her mother Anna while in the lane with Haines. The judge said Lily gave "a clear indication she was now coming to meet her mother".
He added: "That phone call ended abruptly mid-conversation, which Mrs Sullivan says was very atypical of Lily.
"There is some grainy footage from the lane. At one point Lily's phone is seen to be moving rapidly around, when it seems to me that phone calls were incoming. At around the same time, a barber who lived above the alley heard a man and woman quarrelling, and a woman insisting she did not want to move from where she was."
Judge Thomas said he had to discount the barber's evidence due to a disparity over timings. But he took into account another neighbour's recollection of a woman screaming.
The judge said it was significant that Lily's phone and jacket were left in the alleyway. He added: "I find she did not leave those voluntarily at that spot. I find further that she did not leave the alley of her own volition but was forcibly taken to the Mill Pond by Lewis Haines.
"Her body, when recovered, was naked from the waist up. Her skimpy top was found slightly damp on vegetation near the Mill Pond. I come to the conclusion she was not wearing that top when she went into the river. Had she been, it would have been completely saturated. I find it was removed from Lily against her will by Lewis Haines.
"Lewis Haines struck Lily on several occasions, as her injury and the presence of blood show. That was done with significant force. He then strangled her, probably to death, before putting her into the Mill Pond where she would not be seen at night.
"I wholly reject the account put forward by Lewis Haines that he went into the water to try to save Lily. If he went into the water at all — and he probably did — he wanted to make sure she had died. His intention was to silence her."
The judge pointed out that Haines had a phone and passed many houses on his walk home from the Mill Pond but made no attempt to get help for Lily.
Judge Thomas continued: "Killing her was the only way he could be confident she would not survive to tell her family what had happened. It was only after he knew she had not survived that he let others know where she was.
"Why did he want to ensure that Lily could not be saved? He put in his statement that she had threatened to falsely accuse him of rape. I am sure, however, that having been in that lane for some time and having had intimate contact up to a point, Lily decided she was going to meet her mother... She did not want the intimacy to go as far as sexual intercourse.
"Fuelled as he was by drink, I am satisfied that Lewis Haines was frustrated by this... He became forceful towards her and she resisted. I am sure from the evidence that Lily did not remove her top voluntarily to be naked in the middle of the night in December. I am sure Mr Haines took it off her.
"His account of her threatening to tell people what he had done with her does in fact have an element based in truth. I find she did say she would complain, not that he had actually raped her, because he had not, but because he had tried to force himself upon her against her will."
Haines bowed his head low as he was led from the courtroom. 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.
Earlier on Tuesday the court had heard that Lily was between two and three times the drink-drive limit at the time of the killing. Haines was more than three times above, according to calculations based on a test taken eight hours later.
Haines, of Flemish Court, Lamphey, Pembrokeshire, previously denied murdering Ms Sullivan but he pleaded guilty a week before his trial was due to begin. He is due to be sentenced on Friday. You can read the full details of the case here in our live blog.
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