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00:00On the 24th of January 2014, police had called to a family home in the affluent area of
00:10Oxtod in Surrey. Still at the scene is 16-year-old student Stephen Miles, who hours earlier had
00:17stabbed his 17-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Thomas, to death before dismembering her body.
00:23There was something about Stephen Miles that was just so cold, so calculated, as if there
00:35was no heart, no soul there. There was no remorse or contrition for what he had done. He smiled
00:42at me and it was quite chilling. Do you think Elizabeth at any time in coming to the house
00:50would have felt fear or would have had any idea that she could have been in danger?
00:53She had absolutely no idea what was going to happen to her. This was cold-blooded, premeditated
01:01murder by a child.
01:09Over the last few years, the number of teenagers convicted of murder has risen drastically.
01:15It's unimaginable that a young person could conceive of such a brutal act. I'm looking into the
01:20cases of Britain's killer teens and trying to answer the most difficult question. Why?
01:25On the day of the killing, at 1.56 p.m.,
01:55Stephen Miles sent a text to Elizabeth saying, can you meet me at the back of the school?
02:01Elizabeth sent a text to her mother at 2.28 p.m., and her mother replied at 2.29 p.m.,
02:08keep in touch.
02:09That message was not read.
02:19Sorry, police, what's the emergency?
02:26Fascinated with horror movies and the macabre, Stephen Miles was just 16 years old when he
02:31brutally and ferociously murdered his girlfriend, Elizabeth.
02:41Prior to the crime, Stephen Miles wasn't known to the police. He didn't have a history of
02:45violence. But what we do know is that he had this fascination with murder.
02:50I want to speak to the senior investigating officer, Claire Pridgen, because she's going to have
02:54all the facts. She has never spoken publicly about this case, but she's going to be the one who has
03:00a real insight into what exactly happened on the day of the murder.
03:10Can I talk about this particular night and just the timeline of when you were first told
03:13about what's happened?
03:15It was about six o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and the call came in from the control room.
03:20Young female killed and has been dismembered. The most important thing was to take control
03:26as quickly as I could.
03:30This would be a Category C murder because we're not on a manhunt. The suspect's Stephen Miles.
03:37He was there. He was there with his family. His family were cooperating, which was hugely important
03:43for me as well, because they are witnesses.
03:50Talk to me about some of the information that's coming in. What were the initial facts that you
03:54were given in this case?
03:56His sister had come home, maybe slightly early, had gone into their lounge, had been watching
04:00television, and that Stephen had then come out and sat next to her quite calmly and had
04:05a conversation with her that was something similar to, I have done something terrible.
04:11And she looked at him, apparently, and asked what. And his response was, I've killed Elizabeth.
04:21So, we knew who'd done what. We knew Stephen had killed. That was not the focus of the inquiry.
04:26The investigation wasn't concerned with who killed Elizabeth Thomas, but why? And what drives a 16-year-old
04:35to kill?
04:38The person charged with trying to answer that question in Stephen Miles' case would be psychologist
04:43Dr Chrissie Tithard.
04:44Stephen Miles, at the time, was living in Oxford, in Surrey. He lived with his parents. His father
04:54was a gardener and tree surgeon. Stephen had always been a little bit of a loner. He'd found
05:02it hard to make friends.
05:03I think he was very naive. He was a child. But I think in his being totally self-obsessed,
05:12he thought that he was going to get away with it.
05:17I'm looking at evidence trying to piece together a timeline of what happened. It started a couple
05:22of days before, on the 22nd of January 2014. Elizabeth and Stephen, they're texting to arrange
05:28to meet up. Interestingly, during that conversation, Stephen told her that his dad was off work,
05:33so that must have meant that Elizabeth, you know, would assume that he would be in the
05:37family home, somebody else was going to be in the house that day. But the morning of the
05:41murder, the 24th of January, Stephen's parents did go to work, and his sister went to class
05:47at university.
06:08By 3.45pm, Stephen's sister had come home from uni. And Stephen confesses to murder.
06:15Stephen's sister returned. And Stephen came out from his bedroom where the body of Elizabeth
06:24was at that time, dead. Stephen knew that he had no way out at that stage.
06:30So what evidence are you taking from the scene?
06:36Any information around phones, devices, or information that would point to an individual's
06:41mindset at the time of committing that offence.
06:45When I did attend the scene, one of the first things I saw, he had written a list. He had
06:50lit that piece of paper. It was merely ash, but it was still furled and I could read what
06:56was on it, which I remember having a list of black bean bags, knife. That was him covering
07:04his tracks and that was him burning his evidence. I think he got caught out with his sister coming
07:08home early. I have no idea where that might have led if he had got rid of Elizabeth.
07:16There were knives. Those knives were used to stab and kill her. There were saws which were
07:26used to dismember her body. And so did he have those in the room beforehand or did he bring them in
07:38after he had killed her? Tarpaulin suggests that he had thought this through and he had brought items
07:46into the flat, into his bedroom, so that he could use those to one, kill, and two, to try and dispose of the body.
07:59It's pretty gruesome that a child would even imagine to do this.
08:0616-year-old Stephen Miles has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Thomas,
08:27who is just 17. Stephen does little to hide his crime.
08:31In fact, he seems open, almost proud. But then he climbs up.
08:40Stephen needed to be assessed as being able to be interviewed for a start. So he was taken to a
08:47hospital in London where the decision by the head clinician was she couldn't hold him there
08:53because he was too dangerous.
09:01The first time I met Stephen was in HMP Feltham. It had been quite a difficult meeting to set up
09:09because given the way that he was presenting, I felt that I needed prison officers present.
09:19I can clearly remember being confronted with Stephen on my own, without anybody in the vicinity whatsoever,
09:26in a cell, door wide open, and Stephen sitting there blankly staring straight ahead.
09:35I clearly remember actually at that time saying, no, I'm not doing this, without some backup.
09:42The first time ever, I think that I'd felt intimidated by another person.
09:49He spoke first, saying, hello, Dr. Tizard, I know all about you.
09:59He accepted from the outset that he was entirely responsible. But in that acceptance, he referred to his alter ego, Ed, as having committed the murder.
10:09Now, what's interesting here is that this wasn't the first time that Stephen mentioned his alter ego.
10:17In 2012, when he was just 15 years old, Stephen was placed under the care of mental health professionals.
10:23He was self-harming, was experiencing auditory hallucinations, and quite frankly, his family were worried.
10:31Approximately two years before the killing, there were accounts of Stephen Miles hearing voices who would tell him what he should do.
10:46And that led to Stephen Miles going to see psychiatrists and mental health workers to try and establish what was going on and why this was occurring.
10:59He got a diagnosis of Asperger's, what we would call now, along the autistic spectrum, ASD.
11:10He would spend his time researching characters out of movies that he found interesting.
11:19Ed was a character who had been in one of the films he'd watched, who appeared to him one day.
11:26And Ed became his friend.
11:30And it was thought at the time that Ed was a function of his anxiety, an imaginary friend.
11:37And it acts as a comfort and brings down anxiety levels.
11:42But people who have a diagnosis of ASD do not generally harm people.
11:48It's extremely rare that somebody would carry out this type of crime who had ASD.
11:57I'm meeting Laverne Antrobus, a psychologist who specialises in children's mental health.
12:03I want to get a better handle on Stephen Miles' state of mind, and in particular, whether the warning signs should have been picked up sooner.
12:11There was no event that happened in a younger age or anything that could have brought up any anger issues or anything like that.
12:19Just quite a normal background.
12:21Looking at it from the outside, a fairly ordinary family.
12:25But he had self-harmed.
12:27One of the things that often is a big flag for parents, professionals alike.
12:33He had some therapy, he spent some time with professionals, and made good progress.
12:37He had been signed back on as being psychologically sound.
12:43He'd returned to school, and things had improved for him.
12:50So Stephen Miles was signed off by the mental health team in October 2013.
12:56That's just three months before he killed Elizabeth.
12:59For SIO Claire Pridgen, she really wants to look at his mindset.
13:03How did this teenager, who was mentally better, end up committing murder?
13:11We looked at phones, devices, and there was a lot of chat.
13:15Not just between him and Elizabeth, but him and his previous girlfriends, which were quite significant.
13:22The difference way that he would chat to them, and the way that he would chat to Elizabeth.
13:26And what was coming out of that is that at one point in time, when someone referred to Elizabeth as being his girlfriend,
13:32his response to that was, she's not my girlfriend, she's my project.
13:36He used the word project?
13:38He used the word project.
13:38What's the significance in that?
13:40That is a crucial piece of evidence.
13:42Because in his mindset, no matter what Elizabeth thought the relationship was, it is not how he viewed her.
13:48She, I think, did adore him.
13:49I think she recognized he had some issues, and her desire was to help him.
13:56It's unclear what the term relationship meant to Stephen, and indeed to Elizabeth.
14:06We used the term relationship to describe what was going on between them, but we really don't know.
14:13It's more a persona that people with these type of problems have.
14:17They know how to charm.
14:19It's not real.
14:19But they can put on a persona to get what they want.
14:24But underneath that, there's absolutely no warmth, no regard, no care, no love.
14:30He's so young to be able to mentally, but also physically, do what he did.
14:42You know, Stephen's state of mind in that moment, this wasn't Elizabeth.
14:48This was an act that he was carrying out.
14:51So do we know, like, why that day?
14:54Why then?
14:55You know, his father had been off work, recovering from an operation.
14:59It was the first day that he was going to be leaving the family home.
15:02And one can only wonder if that was the trigger.
15:05Nobody's going to be at home, and this is the day that this can happen.
15:09Stephen met Elizabeth at the sixth form college they attended together.
15:23From all accounts, the relationship was not without its problems.
15:30They'd argue he was difficult.
15:33Friends questioned whether they should be together.
15:35And Elizabeth said that to her, it was important that there was somebody for him, to support him.
15:43And that's what she did.
15:49In the case files here I'm looking at, we see messages from Elizabeth which show that she was 100% invested in Stephen.
15:57On the 10th of October 2013, Elizabeth sent an email to a friend.
16:01Stephen became my boyfriend today.
16:02One friend asked her why she bothered, and she replied,
16:07I am different from other females.
16:09I am fighting for him.
16:13Elizabeth Thomas was one of the few people to show kindness and support to Stephen.
16:18And yet he decided she was the person he was going to kill.
16:23And that is where Stephen Miles begins to plan.
16:26So aside from this list that he had made, and how the room was set up, what other piece of evidence did you find to show that this was premeditated?
16:38What's important is to think about how did he get to where he was to kill Elizabeth?
16:43Well, we knew he'd had previous girlfriends, so we looked at those, particular girlfriends, chat messages.
16:49We interviewed them as well, got their evidence off them.
16:53But we know that from the evidence of the previous girlfriends, where he'd held one of them down and tried to strangle them,
16:58and had told people that he wanted to kill somebody.
17:01Elizabeth had confided in a friend that Stephen had put his hands around her neck and attempted to strangle her,
17:10and she'd sort of challenged him by saying, sort of, go on then.
17:14I would hypothesise in that moment that her saying, go on then, was not the trigger.
17:20This had to come from him.
17:21It was becoming apparent to investigators that Stephen was positioning himself to deny responsibility for the killing,
17:30using the partial defence of diminished responsibility.
17:35Diminished responsibility is the old concept for what is now abnormality of the mind.
17:42It's effectively a partial defence to murder, where someone isn't responsible for their actions.
17:48And effectively, what it does, it reduces murder to manslaughter.
17:57Why was it so important for you, Claire, to be able to get all this evidence so you could prove that this wasn't diminished responsibility due to his mental health?
18:07It was to make sure, for that family, that they got justice for the death of Elizabeth.
18:13And the only way to do that was to make sure that this did not fail at court.
18:18We can't get away from the fact that he had planned this for so long.
18:26He had researched it in minute detail.
18:29The question was when it was going to be done, not if it was going to be done.
18:33He had no feelings for other people.
18:35People were just objects to him.
18:38So doing what he did, he would not have felt revulsion.
18:42He would not have felt disgust.
18:45And I don't mean to minimise it in any way, because it's very difficult to understand.
18:50He would have been just literally carrying out a mission.
18:53In January 2014, Stephen Miles had been arrested for the killing of Elizabeth Thomas.
19:11According to Stephen, his alter ego, who he calls Ed, he was the driving force behind his actions.
19:17And in a way, that the character was instructing him to carry out the killing.
19:23I mean, it's really like something out of a TV drama.
19:27The question facing the legal teams now is whether this really is some sort of psychological disorder,
19:32or whether it's just something that Stephen was hiding behind.
19:35It was difficult to pinpoint where the violence came from.
19:42Of course, the expert reports considered what was called dissociative identity disorder,
19:48which is effectively people who suffer from multiple personality disorders.
19:54Initially, he gave us instructions that it was his alter ego, Ed, and that it had nothing to do with him.
20:00But when we looked at the evidence in this case, it became abundantly clear that Stephen Miles knew exactly what he was doing to this young girl.
20:12It wasn't one of those normal scenarios where you have a Jekyll and Hyde situation.
20:18He was always quite excited to talk about Ed.
20:21Interviewing Stephen, it was really interesting to find out how Ed appeared to him.
20:27He was very much of the view that he was not hallucinating, that Ed was a real person, and Ed told him how to live his life.
20:41Maybe he'd come up with, I need to have a reason for me doing this, so I'm going to blame somebody else, and I've chosen this character.
20:48Yes, it was always there, but any part of his mental health was always there and always going to be an issue.
20:54But Ed, for me, didn't feature, so I wasn't concerned about Ed.
21:01When he was in prison, Stephen said to me that Ed would come and visit him and stand in the corner of the cell and look at him.
21:09And he knew that he was angry by the facial expression.
21:13Stephen remarked that he was trying to ignore him because he didn't want to listen to him anymore.
21:17He wouldn't make friends, couldn't make friends, tended to spend all his time in his bedroom watching horror movies.
21:28He was, so he said, absolutely addicted to Dexter and Psycho, and he would enjoy all the darker movies and found them strangely comforting.
21:41Comforting was the word he used.
21:47I first heard about Dexter when I started reading the answers that Stephen had given to both the psychologists and the psychiatrists.
21:56And he talked not just about his alter ego, Ed, but he started telling the various experts about his love of the Dexter TV series and the comparisons and similarities that he had with Dexter, those similarities which he wished to carry out in terms of his victim.
22:17One has to consider, when you look at the detail of a killing such as this, as to whether a part of that killing, if not whole, is as a result of what the defendant was exposed to by watching rather gruesome television dramas.
22:43So the media really latched on to the fact that Stephen had watched the TV series Dexter, and while that is a big part, there's so much more to this.
22:56The fact that he extensively researched and planned what he was going to do.
23:01And the one thing we did learn is that he always intended to kill.
23:07And sadly, Elizabeth was who we chose.
23:13Is it worrying for someone to have this alter ego and speak about this other person in such a way that could lead to potential something really violent or something really terrible happening?
23:25I mean, there's a number of leaps in that because, you know, lots of young children talk about having a friend or, you know, those sort of...
23:31Yeah, imaginary friends.
23:31I mean, not that that's the same thing, but I suppose you want to be a bit careful about, you know, what this person represented for Stephen.
23:42So there's something about what I'm imagining, the conversations that Stephen felt he was having with the Ed character, that were much more complicated and much more dangerous.
23:54So Stephen's mudding the waters with his alter ego, Ed, suggesting that he's not in full control of his actions.
24:03But detectives, they're not buying it.
24:06Crucial to their efforts in securing a murder conviction, they need to show that the killing of Elizabeth was premeditated,
24:12and that from the very start, he had murder in mind.
24:15This is so well planned.
24:26Stephen had taken some considerable time, if not days, to find all of these items that are on this list
24:35and place them in his room in preparation for bringing Elizabeth back to his bedroom.
24:41That, to me, was pretty shocking. I don't think I've ever seen that before.
24:47It says an orange saw with blood upon it, a survival cord with blood upon it, a black-handled hunter's knife in a sheath where the tip was broken off.
24:59Rullicling film, which he used to wrap Elizabeth in.
25:03Metal-handled spade, a partly burnt piece of paper which on it, it said bin bag, plastic sheet.
25:08Elizabeth's handbag was found in the cupboard within the bag was her telephone.
25:13It had been smashed, and he's now trying to stop anyone making contact with her.
25:18That is not somebody, to me, who's of diminished responsibility and doesn't understand what he was doing.
25:25There's no way that you could ever say that this was a loss of control, like an argument.
25:31I picked up a knife.
25:32This was cold-blooded, pre-planned murder.
25:35What other piece of evidence did you find to show that this was premeditated?
25:44We looked at the CCTV, showing that he'd taken a different route than he'd normally take.
25:49And there was capture of him and Elizabeth walking by, but only of their feet.
25:55And I think that was a deliberate thing on his part.
25:57I think he thought he'd evaded CCTV altogether, but he hadn't.
26:01The timings of meeting her after her class as well, giving him time when his sister wasn't there to bring her home.
26:09There was a whole layering of different evidence that showed his planning.
26:14He had an iPad as well, and the iPad was examined.
26:17And that gave us some evidence of him researching weapons.
26:21Those things all layered together, kind of, were pretty damning for Stephen.
26:29Miles lured the 17-year-old to his parents' flat in Oxford in January.
26:33He repeatedly stabbed her, then attempted to dismember her body.
26:36The evidence coming from the post-mortem was as significant as the findings in his bedroom, because of what he did to her.
26:49At first, there was one single stab wound to her back, and it had gone through her coat and her clothing,
26:56which shows that Elizabeth had no understanding of what was coming next.
26:59The result of this wound would have caused the deceased to lapse into unconsciousness,
27:04and death would have ensued soon after.
27:10One of the worst post-mortems I've been to.
27:13You never forget seeing something like that?
27:16No.
27:17Even now, over a decade later, there's certain parts in the results of that post-mortem that you can't read to me.
27:22Yes.
27:23To see Clare, who has witnessed so much in her long career,
27:31not be able to read out some of the things that happened to Elizabeth,
27:34it just doesn't bear thinking about.
27:38All I can think about is, you know, her poor family, that poor girl.
27:43No one should ever have to go through this.
27:45You almost forget he's only 16 when it happened.
27:53But the planning, the meticulous planning that went into this,
27:57the fact that it was premeditated,
28:00his motive, from what I can gather,
28:01is that he wants to know what it felt like to kill someone.
28:05And Elizabeth was his first opportunity to do that.
28:08Crucial to the police and prosecutions case to show that the killing of Elizabeth was premeditated
28:15was the initial psychiatric assessment of Stephen Miles and his fitness to stand trial.
28:21We had to send him to Broadmoor for assessment,
28:25and he was found to be compass mentis and fit for interview.
28:30There was absolutely no evidence in the psychometrics to say that he was schizophrenic,
28:36he was very aware of everything, very aware of what he'd done.
28:40There was just nothing to pinpoint or, you know, illustrate that at all.
28:48I think the level of violence in this case could be illustrated by the reports of the pathologists.
28:54There were defensive injuries on the fingertips of Elizabeth,
28:58because before she died, she tried to fend Stephen Miles off.
29:06Stephen is actually detained in a young offenders institution
29:10and not a mental health facility, which I think is really telling.
29:14He's not convincing anyone with his attempts of mental incapacity.
29:19It seems almost like he's playing these games with the investigators.
29:24You almost forget that he's just 16 years old, that he's this child,
29:28but he is more than ready and willing to take on the adults.
29:31There was something about Stephen Miles that was just so cold, so calculated,
29:39as if there was no heart, no soul there, just a complete icy cold blankness.
29:47Because he wanted to be in control.
29:49He was trying everything he could to be in control of the process.
29:53Murder was something Stephen was always going to do.
29:57He'd wanted to do it for about 10 months, and he'd looked around for a suitable victim.
30:05He didn't really say what made Elizabeth suitable.
30:09Just that she'd been a nice girl, and she'd been friendly to him,
30:14and they'd struck up a friendship.
30:16Stephen said it was his plan, because to do the things that he did,
30:21he would have had to know her very well.
30:25I can remember him telling me how he had carried out the murder,
30:31the moments after, and the fact that he didn't panic.
30:39He told me that his fascination had started with his father's tools,
30:46particularly his father's tools used for tree felling,
30:50and he'd had a previous obsession with collecting sores.
30:55This then grew to the fact that he wanted to take a life,
31:00and it was his intention that he would take a life using sores.
31:06Listening to Dr. Tizard and hearing what she has to say is astonishing.
31:16I mean, she had that one-on-one direct contact with Stephen,
31:20and it's the closest I'll ever get to speaking with him.
31:23And you can see for such a young boy,
31:27he really wanted to intimidate those particularly older than him,
31:30and was able to make them very uncomfortable.
31:35And his deluded nature and arrogance is just breathtaking.
31:42I was quite struck when I first saw Stephen Miles as to how calm he was.
31:46He looked and sounded very mature,
31:49but it was only after a few minutes that I realised
31:51that this was effectively an act.
31:54There was no contrition for what he had done.
31:57He smiled at me, and it was quite chilling.
32:00There was a real grandiose aspect to Miles.
32:05He was very driven to actually prove
32:10that he was more important than anybody else.
32:17Stephen was told at the outset the consequences
32:20of being found guilty of murder,
32:22and that even at 16, he was going to go inside for a long, long time.
32:26He was completely unperturbed by it.
32:30He wasVery2
32:33The night of Toulouse
32:36Teenager Stephen Miles is in custody
32:38Teenager Stephen Miles is in custody for killing 17-year-old Elizabeth Thomas.
32:47The cold way in which he talks about taking her life is really disturbing.
32:53And even in the aftermath, he appears to be emotionless.
32:58And I just can't get a firm grip on why.
33:04What do you think his motive was?
33:06I think he wanted people to know what he was doing.
33:08And it would be out there.
33:10Like a notoriety?
33:11There's a notoriety, I think, there for him.
33:13This is someone who wanted some kind of infamy for himself.
33:21I've interviewed and assessed people that we technically call narcissists or who had personality disorders.
33:28But Stephen was a degree further.
33:32The level of grandiosity was incredible.
33:36The results of the psychological assessment with Stephen were really clear.
33:41He showed a really high-profile force, schizotypal behavior, borderline personality behavior.
33:51But underneath, there's a very fragmented, weak person.
33:54Despite admitting to killing Elizabeth, Stephen was going to plead not guilty, probably hoping to use a defense of diminished responsibility.
34:08Detectives, however, they had no reservation in pushing forward for a full murder trial, which is actually really shocking considering he's just 17 years old.
34:17But Clare, she had managed to compile this really strong case.
34:20And Stephen had another problem.
34:23The psychological evaluation showed that he was a sound mind.
34:27Stephen was a magnificent narcissist, and the whole attention of being in court, he reveled in.
34:42He was really excited to be in front of the judge.
34:44He showed no remorse or contrition.
34:46And it was also as though he wanted to sensationalize the hearing itself, with the media being involved, with his name in the papers, and in lights every night.
34:56I can remember going to Guilford Court on the morning of the trial.
35:06I could see Stephen Miles in the booth.
35:10He was just as if he was there, taking in the factual surroundings.
35:16There was no sense of trepidation, fear.
35:20On the day it was listed for trial, there was a dramatic U-turn, and at the 11th hour, he gave instructions that he wanted to change his plea from not guilty to guilty.
35:34The judge concluded that the minimum term of sentence in this case would be one of 25 years in prison.
35:44That's 25 years that the defendant has to serve before he's considered for release, because it's a life sentence.
35:54It means that he may not be released after 25 years.
35:58The judge makes that quite clear.
36:0125 years, when you're 16, is a very, very long time to serve in prison.
36:14Looking at the sentencing remarks of the judge, Christopher Critchlow, his words really sum up what I guess all of us are feeling.
36:23He said, this is a case of the utmost gravity, the horrific features of which are rarely heard in any court.
36:34Stephen Miles, throughout the sentencing hearing, sat quietly looking down.
36:40Obviously, at the time when the judge passes the sentence and proclaims that it's 25 years minimum term,
36:52and he didn't engage anybody in court, didn't look to his family, but obviously his family looked at him.
37:01To be honest, when the sentence was pronounced, I thought it was fair in all the circumstances.
37:12The brutality, the cruelty, and the aftermath, and what he had done in mutilating that young girl's body.
37:22The photographs, which were appalling.
37:26They were horrific.
37:27I was shocked at how young she was.
37:33She was enjoying her life.
37:35She enjoyed school.
37:36She had everything to live for.
37:39And her life was just taken away from in such a cruel, and indeed quite a calculating manner.
37:45How do you feel in reflections of looking at his sentence?
37:54Because you worked very hard that he would be convicted, and that it wouldn't be diminished responsibility.
38:00So, although a horrific case, do you feel justice was done?
38:04I find it difficult that what he did, that justice would probably ever be done, and I think the family will always think that.
38:11And I think that the judge gave the longest sentence he probably could, but no one can ever replace that child.
38:20No one can ever give her life back, or what she might have been.
38:23This is a huge sentence for a teenager to receive.
38:3925 years.
38:40But it does mean Stephen Miles could be eligible for parole.
38:44But if you consider what he did to Elizabeth, can he be rehabilitated enough to ever be released?
38:50I really don't say this lightly, because I like to believe, in general, that people with the right treatment always have the capacity to change.
39:11But in Stephen Miles' case, I think he will always be dangerous, and I really don't think there is any ability for any real change in his profile.
39:29I think my lasting legacy of this case is that once those signs are identified in a troubled young individual, they should confront them immediately.
39:41So that this thing never happens again, because this was a terrible crime, and it must never be repeated.
39:52Stephen Miles was handed one of the longest sentences for any teenage killer in the UK.
39:59He tried to claim mental health struggles, but we can see here, from what the judge ruled, he saw him to be a calculated killer with a plan to murder.
40:10As far as I know, he's never shown any sort of remorse.
40:15We've spoken a lot about Stephen, but we can't forget about the life he took.
40:20And that's Elizabeth, the most important person in the story.
40:24She was more than just a victim.
40:25She was a thoughtful, caring, kind young woman who wanted to help someone.
40:31And I can't comprehend what it would be like to lose someone like that.
40:38And I think the only person, really, who can speak about the loss of such a good soul is her mother herself.
40:45And this is what she said in her victim impact statement.
40:47When the police came to our home on January 24th, 2014, and told us that Elizabeth was dead.
40:59We could not comprehend this.
41:02We have found it very difficult to accept that she is no longer here in our lives.
41:06The house is so quiet and empty without her.
41:08Our sadness will last forever.
41:11Our sadness will last forever.
41:38Our sadness will last forever.
41:50Had
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