Tia’s killer to serve minimum of 38 years in jail

There were sobs and a shout of “beast” from the public gallery as Stuart Hazell was jailed for life with a minimum term of 38 years after finally admitting the murder of schoolgirl Tia Sharp.

The 37-year-old changed his plea on the fifth day of his trial at the Old Bailey, having forced 12-year-old Tia’s family to sit through days of shocking and graphic evidence, including a sickening picture of her taken after she died.

He had claimed that Tia was killed in an accident when she fell down the stairs, but prosecutors said that the window cleaner sexually assaulted her before murdering her and hiding her body in the loft of the home that he shared with her grandmother Christine Bicknell.