Jayden Parkinson's ex-boyfriend guilty of murdering and burying teenager

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/24/ben-blakeley-guilty-murdering-jayden-parkinson

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A young man has been found guilty of murdering his 17-year-old pregnant ex-girlfriend and burying her body in his uncle's grave.

Ben Blakeley, 22, a former binman, strangled Jayden Parkinson the day after she told him she was expecting his child, and hid her body. He later crammed the girl's remains into a suitcase and hired a taxi to take him to a cemetery in Oxfordshire where he dug up the grave of his uncle Alan Kennedy and buried Jayden in it.

As a teenager Blakeley had once told a member of staff at the children's home where he lived that if he ever had to dispose of a body he would hide it in an old grave so that the body parts would get mixed up, confusing any DNA tests.

During his trial, it emerged that Blakeley was a serial abuser of girlfriends. He controlled them, not allowing them to socialise with anyone else, and confiscated their phones. He also punched, kicked and bit them.

Jayden went to the police about Blakeley shortly before she was killed, after she had broken up with him and he threatened to post explicit videos and photos of her on social network sites. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is examining how officers dealt with the case.

A police hunt involving 50 detectives was launched in December last year after Jayden was reported missing from the hostel for young homeless people in Oxford where she was staying. Her body was found in a cemetery next to All Saints' church in Didcot, Oxfordshire, more than a fortnight later.

Blakeley, from Reading, Berkshire, told the jury he was brutalised as a child and had been in care since he was 11. He admitted manslaughter and attempting to pervert the course of justice but denied murder.

When he sent the jury at Oxford crown court to consider its verdicts, Judge Patrick Eccles QC told members to ignore any sympathy or compassion they had for Jayden and her family – as well as any sympathy for Blakeley's "tough upbringing".