“If I had any inclination, he would have been dead,” declared an emotional Christine Bicknell, whose ex-partner brutally murdered her granddaughter. Stuart Hazell had posed as the doting family man, taking Tia Sharp out on trips, looking after her, and caring for her after he moved in with Christine in 2007.

But unbeknownst to everyone, the devil had moved into their house in Surrey. On August 3, 2012, the monster carried out a campaign of horror and brutally killed and sexually assaulted Tia, aged just 12. “I can still imagine her screaming and I can’t get to her, it kills me,” said Natalie Sharp, her mother. “I live in hell every day. There’s no release, there’s no relent.”

Prosecutors argued he had subjected her to even more torment and sexual abuse after he killed her, because of the markings on Tia’s body seen in a sickening photo Hazell took after the girl had died. But the monster put the family through even more hell by insisting that he didn’t know where she was, and tried to con the nation with false pleas for her to come home.

‘Intense smell’

The family’s torment began on August 3, 2013, when Tia was first reported missing. Hazell insisted that Tia had gone shopping in Croydon and had not returned. Then six days into the family’s nightmare, the remorseless Hazell wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Tia under the word “missing” as he looked into the camera and said: “Tia, come home, babe.”

But he knew exactly where Tia was – lying dead in the attic, wrapped in a black bed sheet and a black bag. Christine’s house was searched four times, but during the fifth search, the day Tia’s grandmother started to notice an “intense” smell in the house, police made the discovery that nobody wanted to find in the attic.

Officers then recovered memory cards full of sickening photographs taken by Hazell, such as the 12-year-old applying moisturiser to her legs, and one particularly harrowing image believed to have been taken after Tia’s death.

‘I wanted to kill him’

A brazen Hazell was caught buying alcohol before being arrested, when he was hurled insults by the disgusted public who were outraged at his lies. “I prayed that one of those people got their hands on him before the police did,” said Natalie. “I wanted to kill him. She was my baby.”

Speaking to Channel 5, Christine said it hadn’t even crossed her mind that he would hurt her, because it “didn’t connect” with the man he had presented as for years. “If I had any inclination, he would have been dead, Tia would be at home, and I’d be in prison because I’d have stuck a knife in him,” she declared.

‘No doubt you had a sexual interest in Tia’

A horrendous trial began on May 8, 2013, where the family were made to sit through horrific images presented as evidence to convict the murderer. The court heard he had searched pornographic pictures of girls who wore glasses, which Tia did, and pictures involving incest. Judge Mr Justice Nicol declared: “There is no doubt that you had developed a sexual interest in Tia.”

In the sentencing remarks, he said that Hazell’s internet searches made it “abundantly clear that you were looking out for pornographic pictures of pre‐teen girls”.

A sick picture believed to have been taken after Tia’s death showed blood on her genitalia and on the bed, which matched Tia’s blood. His semen was found on the bedding, and a vibrator was found in the drawer of a bedside table in the monster’s room with Tia’s blood and DNA on it. Dr Fegan‐Earl, who carried out the post-mortem on Tia, said that the mottling which can be seen on parts of the body in the picture was highly suggestive of hypostasis, a condition which only arises after death.

‘Changed plea like a coward’

The prosecution tried to fight for a longer sentence, arguing that her murder involved sexual motivation.

“I think it is more likely than not that the doctors are right,” said the judge, referring to the marks on Tia’s body. However, the judge explained that in a criminal case, she had to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder of Tia involved sexual motivation. “I have decided I cannot.”

Hazell was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder on May 14 with a minimum term of 38 years, meaning he will be 75 years old before he is eligible for parole.

Hazell insisted he was innocent until day five, when he submitted a guilty plea for murder “like a coward after four days of evidence tormenting the family,” according to an expert on the documentary.

‘Serve his time and be hung’

As Hazell was led away, cries from the public gallery called him a “beast”. An inconsolable Steven Carter, her father, said Hazell should “serve his time and be hung”. Natalie Sharp confirmed she was not satisfied with the length of the sentencing.

Sharing her story last December, her mother insisted he should “rot in hell right where I am”. She described Tia as “my best friend, my sidekick, my everything”.

The family said they remained strong and supported each other, and Natalie has two more children, whom her grandmother helps look after. “He won’t finish us,” Natalie said defiantly.

What happened after the trial

In June 2013, the home where Sharp was murdered was demolished. In July 2013, her father said he backed a plan to have websites block certain search terms and warn people when they try to view illegal content. In November 2013, partly in response to the murders of Sharp and April Jones, the search engines Google and Bing modified their systems to block results from searches aimed at producing child abuse images.

Hazell was last reported to be in Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire where in 2017 it was reported that he had attacked a fellow inmate there. It was alleged that he picked up a sharpened object and drove it twice into the man’s face, who was believed to have been given urgent treatment in the prison’s medical wing.