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Britains Countryside Killers - Season 2 - Episode 01: A Fatal Friend Request
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00:01November 2015.
00:03A 15-year-old girl from Leicestershire
00:06stops replying to her parents at a sleepover.
00:09Very tight, small community.
00:11Not a lot happens in Measham.
00:13Rarely serious violent crime, such as homicide.
00:17Hayley doesn't call in as she normally would,
00:19so then her parents are starting to get worried.
00:23Then a phone call raises serious alarm bells.
00:27Hayley's friend calls and asks if she's there.
00:30The parents thought that Hayley was with her.
00:34Hayley's disappearance is reported to the police,
00:37who look through her social media for clues.
00:40She's exchanged over 2,500 messages with somebody.
00:43She didn't know him. He was a stranger to Hayley.
00:46He just popped up in her inbox saying, hey, how's it going?
00:49Didn't want Hayley to tell anybody else.
00:51It was their secret.
00:53So she didn't. She kept it to herself.
00:56This just lured her into his trap.
01:26The Occupational
01:46Ibstock is a former coal mining village
01:49nestled in the countryside of northwest Leicestershire.
01:54Ibstock is a small village that grew somewhat as a result of its business in making tiles,
02:02making brick.
02:03Ibstock is a nice place in Leicester, it's semi-rural.
02:09Small, scenic, it's got that rustic charm to it, lots of beautiful wooded areas, lots
02:17of beautiful places to walk, and it still has only a population of 10,000.
02:22So all of the amenities that you would want, but with this rustic charm.
02:29In towns similar to Ibstock, you will get burglaries, you'll get shoplifting, you'll
02:34get auto crime, stolen vehicles, rarely serious violent crime, such as homicide.
02:41Just a 10 minute drive from Ibstock is the rural village of Meesham.
02:46Meesham is another small community, it's only a few miles away from Ibstock.
02:50It's in the National Forest and it's another rural community.
02:54Very tight, small community, quite a remote place, very popular place to live, not a lot
03:00happens in Meesham.
03:02It's not an area where there's a huge amount of crime, it's quite low crime rate.
03:09Living in Meesham is 15-year-old Kayleigh Hayward.
03:14Now she came from a very large family, she had six brothers and sisters, but it was a
03:18very stable, very loving home.
03:21She lived with her parents at the family home.
03:23She often played a part looking after the younger ones.
03:27Family was really important to her.
03:30She'd had a little bit of trauma early on because she was bullied at school.
03:36That made Kayleigh withdraw into herself and she spent a lot of time at home on the social
03:41media sites talking to friends, but not personally with them.
03:46Sad to see, but she sort of retreated to her bedroom and passed her time with her friends
03:52on the social media sites.
03:56She did move to a new school and that was a new beginning for her really.
04:00She started to come out of her shell a little bit and put the bullying behind her.
04:07She was really thriving there.
04:09She'd made friends and her family were just delighted that she'd got out of this situation
04:15of being bullied and she was really enjoying life.
04:19Now, a lot of her time if it wasn't spent with her friends, it was spent contacting her friends or
04:26sharing
04:27posts, photographs, selfies, that kind of thing online.
04:32As most 15 year olds are, she was very much attached to her phone.
04:40After Kayleigh had changed school and things were getting better and she'd got this
04:45group of social media friends, if you will, she did tell her parents that she was actually going
04:51and going to go and stay with one of those friends.
04:57She was a new friend.
04:58She was somebody that she had met at the new school and her mum and dad were pleased that she
05:03was getting out a little bit and doing what 15 year old girls do.
05:10It showed to them that she was making good, solid friendships, that she was out there in the world, confident,
05:20going out.
05:21So they had no concerns and no suspicions because they really had no no reason to question it.
05:28Most 15 year olds will go and spend time with their friends from school.
05:32The plan is set.
05:34Kayleigh and her friend are going to have a sleepover.
05:36on Friday the 13th of November 2015.
05:41Kayleigh's dad gives her a lift out to to meet up with her friend.
05:45He drops her off at about six o'clock.
05:49She wanted to be dropped off at a college in Ibstock and quite understandably given the fact
05:55Kayleigh had been bullied at her first school and parents now thought she was getting a real social group
06:02of real people and actually meeting them in person as opposed to just communicating over the internet.
06:09Kayleigh's dad took her and dropped her off at the school with a view to picking her up after the
06:14she'd stayed over with the friend.
06:17Quite happy that she's going off to her house for the evening and over the course of the evening Kayleigh's
06:24posting pictures on Facebook.
06:26She's taking selfies and just it all looks like a standard teenage night out with a friend.
06:32They're quite reassured really.
06:35Her family, her parents look at these selfies, these posts and thinks well she's having a great time.
06:41She's having a good time. There's no need to worry about her.
06:45Kayleigh calls in the following morning and she says I'm having a good time.
06:48Can I stay over for an extra night? And of course there's no reason, no reason at all to say
06:55anything other than yes.
06:57Kayleigh doesn't call in as she normally would.
07:01Now the posts and the contact with her family stop on that morning.
07:07But there's no real reason to worry here because you would just hope that she was out there doing
07:14something that is more fun than posting on social media. So again, another reason for Kayleigh's family
07:20to really be quite happy with the situation. It wouldn't have crossed their mind that there was anything wrong.
07:27But as it gets later in the day, Kayleigh is not replying to her parents.
07:33What is this all about? Normally would have heard from her.
07:37Benefit of the doubt. But then Kayleigh's friend calls and asks if she's there.
07:43Well, hang on a minute. The parents thought that Kayleigh was with her.
07:48So clearly at this point they realise that Kayleigh hasn't been truthful about where she's been staying.
07:55And now alarm bells are ringing. And alarm bells start to ring even louder when a builder finds Kayleigh's phone.
08:03It's smashed on the ground and it calls the last number that she appears to have called in order to
08:10try
08:10and reunite the phone with its owner. At this point, Kayleigh's family know that there's something very, very amiss.
08:18With Kayleigh's location unknown, and now her phone found broken and discarded,
08:23even more questions are being raised about what really happened that night.
08:27A stranger's found Kayleigh's phone on the street in Ibstock and got in touch with her new friend.
08:33She's phoned Stephanie to say, is Kayleigh with you? Is she all right? Somebody's found her phone.
08:39Stephanie's surprised to receive this call because as far as she's concerned, they are together.
08:43So she starts questioning her then. Is she covering for her? What's the story here?
08:47The two of them go backwards and forwards just until it becomes apparent that neither of them
08:52is any the wiser as to where Kayleigh might be. In amongst this conversation, she tells Stephanie that
08:58she hasn't seen Kayleigh since Thursday, that there was never any plan for Kayleigh to spend the night
09:03or the weekend at her house, and that she just hasn't been there. This wasn't part of the plan.
09:08So at that point, Stephanie starts really getting quite worried and she starts contacting the extended
09:13family to see, has anybody heard from her? Does anybody know where she is and what's going on?
09:19I think that any parent who has lost their child or doesn't know where their child is, whether that
09:28is for five minutes in a in a supermarket, or in this case, doesn't know where she's been all over
09:36the
09:36weekend, hasn't heard from her now for 24 hours, they will understand that feeling of panic and
09:43just sickness in the pit of the stomach. Kayleigh's family were incredibly worried. They were calling
09:50anybody and everybody that they knew. Nobody knew where Kayleigh was. And it was apparent that they
09:57really needed to call the police at this point. And that's exactly what they did.
10:05Kayleigh's disappearance is now a high risk missing persons case. With police first trying to trace
10:13where she went instead of the sleepover.
10:32On Friday, 13 November 2015, 15-year-old Kayleigh Hayward is dropped off by her parents in Ibstock,
10:40Leicestershire, for a sleepover with a friend. But by the following day, she stops responding to messages.
10:46And when her parents discover she never went to the friend's house, they call the police.
10:53Kayleigh is only 15. She's a child. So the police immediately started investigating.
10:58And one of the first people they spoke to was her friend, where she was supposed to be for the
11:02last couple of nights.
11:04The police are instantly concerned about Kayleigh because this is out of character for her.
11:11The fact that she's not called in in the morning, as is her habit to do. The fact that she's
11:16not posting
11:17on social media anymore. And clearly there's a mystery surrounding, well, who has she been with?
11:23And why has she lied to her parents? Because that's just not typical of her. And the worry starts to
11:32intensify when they reach out to Kayleigh's friends. And one of her friends says, well, she has been
11:39talking to somebody. She's been talking to a boy over the internet. It's someone that we don't know.
11:47She's only been speaking to him for a matter of weeks. Now, at this point, the police are very,
11:52very keen to find out who this person is. And so they're given access to Kayleigh's social media
11:59accounts by her parents. So the police go straight to Kayleigh's social media to try and find out who
12:05it is that she's been meeting. And they find on Facebook in her messenger that over the two weeks
12:12previously, she's exchanged over two and a half thousand messages with somebody who went by the name
12:17of Luke Funtimes Harlow. Police discover that Kayleigh had been messaging a man named Luke Harlow
12:24constantly for the past two weeks. So Luke Harlow is a 28-year-old man who lived locally.
12:31He'd previously worked in bars and warehouses. But at the time of Kayleigh's disappearance,
12:37he was unemployed. He'd reached out to her on social media. She didn't know him.
12:41He was a stranger to Kayleigh. He'd just popped up in her inbox saying, hey, how's it going?
12:45And when Kayleigh's asked, does she know him? He's introduced himself as a friend of a friend and
12:52really launched a charm offensive from the start.
12:55Initially, Kayleigh had told Harlow that she was 19. But very quickly, she changed that to the truth and
13:02told him that she was actually 15. Now, that would normally, on any right-minded person, stop any further
13:10communication. But with Harlow, it didn't. He just wasn't bothered. He just saw it as an opportunity.
13:17The messages seemed lighthearted at first, but soon turned flirtatious. It was apparent that they then
13:22turned into what we now would more obviously call grooming, telling Kayleigh she was special and that
13:28she was beautiful. Now, we can only imagine the impact that that had on a child, a girl who'd been
13:33bullied previously and who might have wanted affection from somebody else. She may have wrongly felt that here
13:40was somebody who really understood her and cared for her, when really, their intent was very malicious,
13:46as we now know.
13:47What they find is two and a half thousand messages that have been exchanged over a period of just two
13:55weeks between Kayleigh and a man called Luke Harlow. Now, what these messages are, are a masterclass,
14:04a masterclass in grooming. So that process of manipulation that an offender will go through with
14:11their victim in order to be able to isolate them, gain access to them and ultimately get away with
14:19offending against them. Grooming can be threats, but more often than not, it's compliments. And what we
14:28see here is two and a half thousand highly manipulative messages that are lover boy technique. That's what I
14:37would call it. Starts out quite innocently with, hi, how are you? And then it's, I'm a friend of a
14:47friend
14:47and I just wanted to reach out to you because, well, you're so lovely, you're so attractive. And then it
14:53moves on to, can we take this somewhere more private? So even more private than direct messaging
15:00on Facebook, can we now text each other? And then from there, Kayleigh's love bombed. You're gorgeous,
15:07I want to see you. Oh, by the way, I'm a bit older than you. And so people wouldn't necessarily
15:13understand our relationship. So keep it to yourself. Keep it private.
15:18We didn't want Kayleigh to tell anybody else. It was their secret. So she didn't. She kept it to herself.
15:25She thought she was going to meet someone special, but didn't tell her parents.
15:29And this, this just lured her into his trap. Soon Harlow is pressuring Kayleigh to meet him.
15:35He's offering her treats. He's offering her a lovely evening, putting that pressure on,
15:39but in a way that might not be obvious to a child. You can drink alcohol at my place,
15:45because I understand that even though you're 15, you are older in, in your maturity than in your years.
15:55Again, other people won't understand that. So don't let them know. But come over,
16:00we can eat chocolate together. We can cuddle on the sofa together. You can drink vodka at my house.
16:06That's no problem. And we'll just have a really nice time. You're my princess.
16:11You know, this could be the start of a beautiful relationship. Just a beautiful relationship that
16:17you need to keep secret. To Kayleigh, this is the older, more sophisticated boyfriend,
16:24who treats her like an adult, and seems to be really, really into her. That's intoxicating for
16:30a 15-year-old. The police immediately wanted to question Harlow. The police made their way to
16:36Harlow's house and put him under arrest. Back at the police station, Luke Harlow tells
16:42detectives his version of events. He quite readily admitted that he'd been with Kayleigh,
16:49and he'd spent time with her, that there'd been sexual activity between the two of them,
16:52even though she was 15. The Friday night passes, and Kayleigh contacts her parents on the Saturday,
16:59asking to stay another night. But as the Saturday rolls on, and it gets into the Saturday evening,
17:03they run out of alcohol. Harlow goes to speak to his neighbor, Stephen Biedman, to see,
17:09has he got any alcohol, has he got any vodka, or anything else. But he doesn't, so the two of
17:14them set off together to go to the off-licence. While they're walking to the off-licence,
17:21Harlow mentions to Biedman that he's got a bird back at his house, in his words, and that once they've
17:27been to the shop, he's more than welcome to come back and carry on drinking with the two of them
17:31back
17:31at the flats. And Biedman says that he'll come round to have a look at this bird. Now, as far
17:39as
17:39I'm concerned, this was a sexual predator bragging about who he'd managed to ensnare, and Stephen Biedman
17:49went round to his house, in the knowledge that Kayleigh shouldn't have been there in the first place,
17:56and fully with the intent of having some form of sexual contact with her. We don't know a great
18:01deal about Stephen Biedman. Of course, he was the next door neighbor and friend of Harlow. He was a
18:08landscape gardener, and you might think that he's fairly unremarkable. Harlow's claim is that after
18:15Biedman came back to the house and was drinking with them, Harlow went to bed, woke up in the morning,
18:20so this is now Sunday morning, the house was empty. No sign of either Biedman or Kayleigh.
18:27Biedman's obviously somebody that the police really need to speak to,
18:30so they start looking for him, and they find him at a relative's house in Colville,
18:34and bring him in for questioning. Now police have both men in custody.
18:40Will either of them reveal what's happened to Kayleigh?
18:45The police were immediately aware, just from looking at Biedman, that something wasn't right.
18:49He had visible injuries all over his face. They were particularly concerned as to where they came from.
18:56So Biedman, at first he says that he's never met Kayleigh, and then later he says that he has met
19:02her.
19:02He'd met her on the night of the 14th after he'd been invited back by Harlow,
19:06but he'd gone back and that he'd joined them for a drink and stayed for a few hours,
19:10but that he'd gone home about midnight and left Harlow and Kayleigh together.
19:13So when the police interviewed Biedman, what he did say was that when he drinks,
19:19he becomes a different person, he becomes very violent, and he was probably putting that forward as
19:24some kind of mitigation or defence that he might choose to rely on later on.
19:30We've got a case of, well, nothing to do with me, there's nothing to see here,
19:35because we've got, on one hand, Biedman says he left at midnight, all was well,
19:40and Harlow says he was in bed by midnight. He'd left Biedman and Kayleigh together.
19:46He heard nothing, saw nothing, slept through it all, and as far as he's concerned,
19:53nothing to do with him. They're not quite pointing the finger at one another,
19:56but each one of them has got a story of how they are not involved.
20:01Now, it seems that midnight is a significant time, because we've got Biedman saying that he left at
20:08midnight, we've got Harlow saying that he was sound asleep at midnight, and neither of them know what
20:15happened after that. But prior to this, around 10 o'clock at night, neighbours had heard banging,
20:23consistent loud banging, as though somebody was having some sort of fight, or something was going on.
20:30So what happened before midnight? This magic time when, seemingly, both parties say they were
20:38asleep or at their own home, and everything was calm.
20:42Harlow and Biedman's stories do not add up, suggesting they are hiding what really happened
20:47that night. Police believe Kayleigh has been harmed, and their priority is to uncover the truth so they
20:53can find her.
21:14Luke Harlow and Stephen Biedman, both in police custody, are linked to the disappearance of 15-year-old Kayleigh Hayward,
21:22who has not been heard of since Saturday, November 14th. Their stories conflict, and investigators suspect they are
21:29withholding crucial information. Their top priority is to uncover the truth and locate Kayleigh.
21:37There's a huge search for Kayleigh. So over 300 police were involved, and a huge number of the community
21:46turned out to see if they could help because they were just shocked by her disappearance. And of course,
21:52they were really concerned about what was known at that point, about where she'd spent her last nights.
21:58So everybody's looking for her. There's drones all over the place. One of the local community
22:04find a bra on a piece of land. It's not where you would expect to find a bra. And of
22:10course,
22:11knowing about this case, they do the sensible thing and they contact police. When police show
22:17Kayleigh's mum a photograph, it matches a bra. It's the same size as a bra that Kayleigh had,
22:25and that's no longer in the home. Well, I can't imagine what must have been going through Kayleigh's
22:30mum's mind. No doubt at that point, she had thought that some sort of foul play has taken place. So
22:38that
22:38is a horrific moment for Kayleigh's family. But it's quite a breakthrough in the investigation for the
22:44police. Police suspect Beatman's injuries could have been sustained from defensive wounds,
22:50and follow that line of inquiry. The police searched this flat to see had Kayleigh been there,
22:56and they found no evidence that she had. But something that was a noticeable feature was that
23:01he had some facial injuries, which he said he'd sustained working on a farm in Belton. The police
23:05went to look at this farm and they found Beatman's lockup. When they went and had a look inside,
23:11they found some blood-stained clothing. When they looked at the CCTV from the off-licence,
23:15where Beatman and Harlow had been to buy more alcohol, they realised that the clothing that was
23:21in the lockup, the blood-stained clothing, matched the clothing that he'd been wearing when he went to
23:26the shop that night. And it is placed onto what appears to be a bonfire that is just ready to
23:34be lit.
23:35Now, when that clothing is analysed, the blood comes back. It's not Beatman's, it's not Harlow's,
23:43but it does match Kayleigh's.
23:48So when the police were searching the lockup, they found in their nearby skip a purse, and then in
23:54bin bags, they found a cardigan and a bag. They were later confirmed to be Kayleigh's.
24:00With that evidence there, Beatman admitted that, yes, he had killed Kayleigh, and he took the police
24:07to the place that Kayleigh's body was. So on the 18th of November, Beatman gave the information about
24:14Kayleigh's body, and the police went and found her buried in the undergrowth. She only had a sock on,
24:20she was otherwise naked.
24:28This is a moment of closure, to some degree, for the family, in that she's found, she is no longer
24:39lost to them. But she's not found alive. And they have to deal with the fact that this fear that
24:48they've
24:49held for the last five days is actually, is real. They're not going to see their daughter again.
24:57So after Beatman's admitted that he has killed Kayleigh, he tells the police that Kayleigh had tried
25:03to escape. She tried to run out of the flat at about three o'clock in the morning. And he's
25:08run after
25:08her. She's, at this point, she's naked from the waist down. But he runs after her to try and stop
25:13her from
25:14from getting away.
25:16Beatman described a scuffle outside on the street. Now, what he didn't know was that neighbours had
25:21observed this. They'd actually seen this scuffle. But because Beatman was wearing some sort of high vis
25:26clothing, you know, the yellow that you might see on a policeman or a workman, they thought that
25:30something untoward wasn't going on and that it could have been a policeman arresting somebody.
25:35So unfortunately, they didn't act. Around the same time, another witness came forward and said that
25:41they'd heard somebody screaming mummy, which, in hindsight, was probably Kayleigh in her last moments.
25:50While they were still observing this scuffle outside, the neighbours saw both people stand up
25:55and walk off together. So they quickly thought that actually, this might not be a police incident,
25:59but it seems to be two people who'd had a bit of an argument, and now everything was okay.
26:04So again, they didn't act.
26:07What was actually happening there was that Beatman was dragging Kayleigh off where he raped her.
26:12Kayleigh was putting up a good fight. She picked up a rock and she hit him with it,
26:17which explained the injuries to his face. But enraged by this, Beatman then took the rock
26:23and beat Kayleigh so badly that he killed her. So after killing Kayleigh, he took her to some woodland
26:31by the side of the A447 and disposed of Kayleigh's body.
26:35She's so badly beaten around the face and neck that she has to be identified by her dental records.
26:46Kayleigh's family are warned that Kayleigh doesn't look like Kayleigh. She's been so badly beaten.
26:54She's got so many facial and neck injuries. And of course, she's been dead for five days now,
27:01that maybe they might not want to go and view her body. But they do decide that they do want
27:07to do
27:07that. And so they go and they spend their final moments with Kayleigh holding her hand. Those few moments
27:15are so precious. They really are. But the fact that all they could do is hold her hand is so
27:26tragic.
27:29After Kayleigh's body is found, it is time for 29-year-old Stephen Beatman and 28-year-old Luke
27:36Harlow to be officially charged with their crimes. I was telephoned by somebody from the CPS,
27:43which is the Crown Prosecution Service, about the case because they wanted my advice on charging.
27:51Now, that's not unusual, but some charges had already been laid and they wanted my advice
27:57in conference as to whether there should be additional charges. What you need to understand
28:03when you have a serious case like this is what other offences might be disclosed on the papers.
28:09So we all know what a murder is. One person kills another, they intend to do it, or they intend
28:14to
28:15cause really serious harm. That's pretty much standard. In this case, we didn't just have a murder,
28:21we had a rape. We had what we call grooming. We had sexual activity with a child. But we also
28:29had one
28:29of the perpetrators who had done more than that. And the question for me was, what else should we charge
28:36him with? And whether we should charge the murderer with anything additional to what he was already
28:43charged with? Harlow was the chap that groomed Kayleigh online and got her to meet him.
28:51Bedman was his neighbour, who was the man that actually raped and killed her. But although we
28:58thought that Bedman would plead guilty to the murder, the circumstances of what happened to Kayleigh
29:04were quite important. And I was very keen that the defendants, the two of them, didn't concoct a
29:12scenario which benefited them and wasn't telling the truth about what really happened to Kayleigh. And that
29:17was a very unusual thing to do, to look at a murder case and say, well, are we going to
29:22charge him with
29:23something else? And if so, what and why? And is it in the public interest to do so? And finally,
29:29what
29:29did the family think about this? Do they want to go through a trial where we never know where Kayleigh's
29:36name could have been dragged through the mud? Or do they just want to take, if you like, the easy
29:42win
29:42and make it all go away? So there's all sorts of considerations which I have to take on board as
29:48lead
29:49counsel. The prosecutor considers how Harlow's grooming set off the sequence of events that led to her
29:56murder. The grooming in this case was fast. It went from, you're very pretty, have you got a boyfriend? Oh,
30:05well, a girl like you should have a boyfriend in the first couple of days to, within a week, I
30:11want to take you to bed,
30:12I want to get you drunk. I know you're only 15, but you know, all the things he wanted to
30:16do with her.
30:17And of course, I've got to stand up in court and read all this horrible stuff out, right up to
30:22him
30:23basically saying, before he met her, as soon as she gets through the door of his flat, he's going to
30:28have all her clothes off. And yeah, I don't need to explain what he said after that. It's pretty graphic.
30:33I'm used to reading that sort of thing out. I do this sort of thing all the time. But you've
30:37got jurors
30:38who are sitting there listening to what he was saying to a girl he knew was underage. But his eventual
30:46story was that she was happy to be with him. She wanted to meet him. She was happy to engage
30:53in sexual
30:53encounters with him. She was happy when Biedman came round, he bought some more drinks. And she was all
30:59quite happy with all of that. And Harlow's account was all happy, happy, happy. Sexual encounter with
31:05her all consensual. He then fell asleep and had no idea what happened thereafter. That was our line in
31:14the sand. Prosecution case was that there came a point where she wanted to go. And the two of them
31:22kept her there. And we had what we called ear witnesses. They heard a kerfuffle going on in the
31:30flat. Furniture being tipped over, that sort of thing. And indeed, there were some elements of
31:35a struggle still visible when the police turned up. Harlow's flat was found to be in a state of disarray.
31:42Now, this is not to do with his housekeeping skills. This looks like there's clearly been a struggle.
31:48There's been some sort of fracas here. Now, bearing in mind what the neighbours have heard,
31:53there are speakers on the floor which might account for the banging and crashing. There's been some
31:59almighty row here. And it appears that what is happening is that Kayleigh is trying to get out of
32:07the house. And she's been prevented from doing that by not one, but two adult grown men.
32:16And our case was that she tried to make a break for it. The flat that she was staying in
32:22was a sort
32:22of funny sort of up and down. It had a bathroom downstairs, but the main living was upstairs.
32:29And what we think happened, this was our theory, was that she asked to go to the loo. And when
32:34she went
32:34downstairs to go to the loo, she bolted, she made a run for it, not dressed properly. Bear in mind,
32:39this is mid-November. It was wet and it was horrible. Bra, t-shirt, and she made a bolt for
32:47it
32:48out of the flat and along the roadway by the side of the flats.
32:55The initial charges, as I've said, were murder, rape, and sexual offences for
32:59Beadman and sexual offences for Harlow. When we had the large conference, by then I'd been provided
33:06with the downloads of Beadman's phone, Harlow's phone, and Kayleigh's laptop. And what we discovered,
33:14myself and the police, going through Harlow's electronic devices, was that Kayleigh wasn't the only
33:21girl he had been grooming. We found two, possibly three more, certainly two of the quality of messages
33:30that I would be able to use in evidence. One of them we actually charged him with. The other one
33:36was what I would call preparatory. So it was the introducing of himself, pretending to be younger,
33:42to another young girl. But he didn't do anything which we could hook onto an offence.
33:49It was insidious, and it was nasty. And I was prepared to tell the jury about it,
33:53and the judge allowed me to tell the jury about it. But it didn't meet that standard of actually
33:58getting to offending. However, we contacted the girls and their parents, and one of them
34:06cooperated. The other one still thought that he was her boyfriend and wanted to support him,
34:11and indeed came to court to support him. And I had to have quite a difficult conversation with her
34:16and her parent explaining that she would not be allowed to speak to him. And he was in fact
34:23somebody who had participated in a very awful offence. We had a big team meeting. I had the consent
34:30of the parents to charge anything that I felt was appropriate. We, as a team, decided that we would
34:37charge the men with false imprisonment, which is the offence of keeping somebody where they don't want to be.
34:43We couldn't prove that both sexually assaulted her together in the flat,
34:48but we felt false imprisonment was made out by the state of the flat, the ear witnesses,
34:54and the escape. We felt that was solid. That was the thing that we added to the charge, which they
35:01fought at court.
35:05Luke Harlow is charged with grooming, sexual activity with a child, and false imprisonment.
35:11Stephen Biedman is charged with rape, false imprisonment, and murder. How will they plead?
35:32In the early hours of Sunday, the 15th of November, 2015, 15-year-old Kaylee Hayward was raped and murdered
35:40before her body was dumped in a woodland area near Ibstock, Leicestershire. Two men, Stephen Biedman
35:46and Luke Harlow, face serious charges in relation to her death and appear in court to enter their
35:52pleas in April 2016. Harlow admitted that he'd had sexual contact with Kaylee, when of course she's underage,
36:03but what he wasn't prepared to admit to was kidnap and holding her in his home against her will.
36:12When we got to court, Harlow admitted the grooming and the sexual offences in relation to Kaylee.
36:20Biedman admitted the murder and the rape. They both disputed the false imprisonment.
36:25And the barristers on the other side, when we had our preliminary hearing, said,
36:30oh, well, you won't be going ahead with that, will you? You've got enough.
36:33And I basically said to them, no, I have the full support of the family. We will try you.
36:39Either you plead or we try you. And that's what we did. It was an emotional trial. You can't get
36:44away from that. But you don't bring emotion into your job if you can possibly help it. So you simply
36:52tell the jury, this is our case. This is how we present it. This is what we're going to prove
36:56to you.
36:57We presented the case in a very logical progression. We told the story. We have audio visual aids these
37:05days. We have maps. We have drone presentations, moving clips, as much as we can. So try and bring
37:13it alive to the jury. Obviously, it was very much alive to me because I had walked the walk that
37:20Kaylee
37:20had done with Biedman. So I knew what it was like. I knew how far it was. I knew how
37:25cold it was.
37:26I knew what the field was like. It was a ploughed field. It was muddy. It was nasty.
37:31So I was able to, if you like, tell the story better because I'd been there.
37:38The defendants were pretty deadpan. I try not to look at them when I'm in court. I don't think
37:47it does anybody any good. Harlow was, I wouldn't say cocky, but he wasn't, he was,
37:53I think he thought he'd get off. Biedman was troubled and then eventually he refused to come
38:00altogether. I would have been hugely surprised if either of them had been acquitted.
38:05The trial lasts a few weeks during which neither of the men show signs of remorse.
38:11Throughout the trial for the false imprisonment, the pair were just emotionless. There was no,
38:17no sign of any remorse or anything from them. Harlow, when he was convicted of false imprisonment,
38:23glared at the jury in quite a hard, hardened way.
38:31Both defendants admitted their part in what happened to Kaylee. Harlow admitted sexual activity
38:39with a minor and grooming and he denied but was convicted of false imprisonment as well after a
38:46trial. Biedman admitted that he'd murdered Kaylee. They were both handed down custodial sentences.
38:53Harlow was sentenced to 12 years and Biedman was sentenced to life with a minimum of 35 years.
38:59That means that Biedman would have to spend 35 years in prison before eligible for the parole
39:05board to consider his case and he would only be reviewed if they were satisfied that the public
39:10were not at risk from him. However, Biedman didn't serve much of that sentence because in 2021,
39:16he killed himself in custody. Biedman's account of what happened indicates to me someone who's impulsive,
39:25someone who can't manage their own anger and has negative attitudes about women and girls.
39:30Through a combination of these factors and poor emotion management and possibly sexual arousal,
39:35he was able to overcome any inhibitors to assaulting a child, vulnerable child and murdering her.
39:42For me, Biedman is a coward. He's someone that monopolises the vulnerability of a child.
39:50He's someone that can't control his temper, probably doesn't like being challenged. I would just
39:55describe him as a despicable individual.
40:00Biedman is a predatory, concerted groomer. I think he's somebody who had very little going on in
40:10his life and he is somebody who had decided that he was going to make friends with girls maybe as
40:17young as 13 over the internet. He was going to bring them over to his home where he would ply
40:25them with
40:25alcohol so that they're not able to resist him and he was going to sexually abuse them and keep them
40:33there until he felt that he was satisfied. Though both men are behind bars, nothing can ease the pain
40:41of Kayleigh's loss and her community has forever changed. When a crime of this magnitude occurs in a
40:50really small town or small village, it has a significant impact on the sense of safety of the community.
40:59People behave differently. They stop going about their normal routines. Their lives change.
41:06Possibly not forever, but certainly in that interim, that short period of time, people behave differently.
41:13Less willing to go out late at night. They certainly keep an eye on the children. They chaperone them more.
41:18They're probably more guarded. Everything changes when a murder happens in a small place and only time
41:26can heal that when they can get back to some sense of normality. I've been involved in law enforcement
41:33for 36 years and I've seen a steady decline in willingness of people to get involved in supporting
41:41police or even reporting incidents to police that on the face of it are really out of the ordinary.
41:49So whilst there are still people who will get involved and will stand up and become
41:55even witnesses in a trial, it is getting increasingly so and very frustratingly so that there are more
42:02people that won't get involved and won't pick the phone up. And I've seen that growing over the years.
42:12Kayleigh was a child. She was a 15-year-old girl. And so there is absolutely no blame to be
42:24placed on Kayleigh.
42:26She did what I think many, many 15-year-old girls would do. You could say that she's naive but
42:35that was probably part of her charm and beauty. She was a 15-year-old girl who had been brought
42:43up well
42:43and had no reason to believe that such hideous predators with such nefarious intentions should exist in the world.
42:57She had everything to give and all of that has been taken from her because two men wanted to indulge
43:07their sexual fantasy and proclivities for having an underage girl at their disposal.
43:19With the support of Kayleigh's family,
43:21Leicestershire police decide to use her story to spread awareness.
43:27The case really highlights how quickly online grooming can escalate. And Kayleigh's story was
43:35actually made into a short film, Kayleigh's love story, to really show people how things can go from
43:42a quick hi, how are you doing message to within weeks things have gone very intense. And tragically,
43:50you've got a 15-year-old girl who's lost her life. The very first time it was shown in a
43:58school,
43:58two children went up to a teacher afterwards and made reports which led to inquiries being started.
44:05And that was just the first time. And I know it's been shown countless times since. And I just hope
44:10that with the rollover of children, it continues to be shown in secondary schools.
44:17This case, unfortunately, is a really sad reminder of the vulnerability that young people have online to
44:23people who are trying to prey on them. This tells us more about violence against women and girls. It
44:28takes a different form online, but ultimately results in violence and significant harm. This
44:33could happen to any child. Somebody could approach them, try to get them to meet, and they might have
44:38sexual or even violent motivations as in this case. So it really reminds us as parents, as people who've got
44:46relatives, friends, people who, you know, have young people in their lives, we really need to look out
44:51for them and ensure that people are aware of the dangers. Talk to your children about which sites
44:57they're on, what conversations they are having, who with, and generally that conversation can open doors.
45:05But it's really important to understand what they're doing. Have that communication with your child,
45:13and you can read on the internet things to look for. But for me, it's that dialogue. Social media is
45:19taking over so many young people's lives. They don't do anything without posting it on whichever site it
45:26might be. But just try and understand what the motivators are for your children and seek the advice.
45:36It's really sad that a girl from a loving family fell prey to somebody like this. She wasn't an outsider.
45:43She was a family girl with friends and a life and a future. And by listening to what somebody said,
45:53who was a liar and a paedophile, she ended up in a situation that she really tried to get herself
46:00out of,
46:01but wasn't able to. And that's what's so sad about this. She really did try and escape.
46:08But just be so careful with who you speak to online.
46:14So
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