A man who strangled a teenager and left her in a reservoir after she refused to have sex with him has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years and four months.
Lewis Haines, 31, murdered 18-year-old Lily Sullivan after he met her inside a nightclub in Pembroke, south-west Wales, just before Christmas last year. The pair had kissed after meeting in the Out club on December 16 and later went to a nearby alleyway together where they became more intimate.
Swansea Crown Court was told Miss Sullivan was later found face down and topless in Mill Pond, a two-mile-long freshwater reservoir near the town. After murdering the teenager, Haines walked past his victim's mother as she waited to pick her daughter up from a nearby garage.
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Father-of-one Haines admitted murdering Miss Sullivan but denied sexual misconduct. Judge Paul Thomas QC concluded Haines had killed the teenager after she rebuffed his sexual advances.
Judge Thomas said it was clear that after spending around an hour in an alleyway together, Haines had become "frustrated" and attacked Miss Sullivan. Her tobacco tin, mobile phone and leather jacket were later found strewn on the ground in the lane.
Haines made Miss Sullivan walk to the lake, a short distance away, and "forcibly" removed her cream lace top. He later claimed Miss Sullivan had threatened to accuse him of rape.
Judge Thomas said part of the defendant's story held an "element based in truth" and that he had a "great deal to lose". At the time, Haines was going through family court proceedings to have access to his child, and had a girlfriend.
The judge said: "He strangled Lily in order to prevent her telling people he had tried to get her to go further than she was willing, His intention was to silence her. He didn't want anyone to know what had happened in the lane."
Sentencing Haines, Judge Thomas said: "You strangled her face-to-face, she must have been terrified. An 18-year-old girl all alone in the dark with a powerful man.
"She was entirely at your mercy and you, Lewis Haines, showed her none. You were entirely thinking about your own self-preservation."
He said Miss Sullivan's death had caused "devastation to many". Her mother Anna branded Haines "pure evil" and said she will never forgive him.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, she said: "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 death who I saw in the garage and wish I'd confronted him. 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."
She called her only daughter "beautiful inside and out", and a "forgiving, kind and loving" girl who loved music, was a talented artist and had been "robbed of her future". Miss Sullivan's family and friends shouted "rot in hell" and "monster" at Haines as he was taken down to the cells.
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