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28/07/95 - Sex killer of ice lolly girl Rosie, 3, is jailed
for life
By Nigel Bunyan
The Telegraph
A MAN who sexually assaulted and then murdered a three-year-old
girl he saw playing near his home was jailed for life at Leeds
Crown Court yesterday. Shaun Armstrong, 33, seized Rosie Palmer
within minutes of her buying an ice lolly from a passing van
in The Headland, Hartlepool, Cleveland, on June 30 last year.
He then carried out such a vicious attack on the little girl
that her blood was still on him when he visited a local shop
over an hour later. Police found the child's body three days
later. Because Armstrong had placed it inside a bin liner, which
he hid in an airing cupboard at his flat, forensic scientists
were unable to determine whether she had been strangled or suffocated.
James Spencer, QC, prosecuting, said ginger-haired and bespectacled
Rosie was murdered on Armstrong's 32nd birthday. Like other
children in The Headland, which he described as "an ancient
and very close-knit community", she had spent the Thursday
afternoon playing on the streets near her home.
Armstrong, unemployed, who had moved into the area only six
months earlier, spent from noon to 3pm at the Ragland Coyt Club
in Hartlepool, drinking about six pints of beer and several
large rums. "He arrived back at The Headland at 3.30pm,
just about the same time that an ice cream van came round,"
said Mr Spencer.
"The van's chimes attracted the children in the area, including
Rosie. "She ran into her home asking for money for an ice
cream, and then went outside to buy a lolly." Police called
at Armstrong's flat the day after the murder but found nothing
untoward Within moments of Rosie leaving the ice cream van,
Armstrong had seized her and dragged her to his flat.
Scientific tests showed she died within 65 minutes. Mr Spencer
said that Armstrong later went to a local shop to buy two two-litre
bottles of cider. When an assistant noticed blood on his right
hand he claimed his dog had bitten him. At a time when Rosie
had not even been reported missing, he also volunteered the
information that he was helping to look for her.
Instead, he went to the beach, where he ran in and out of the
sea fully clothed. Two police officers, unaware that Rosie was
missing, persuaded him to leave the beach and go home. Police
called at Armstrong's flat the day after the murder but found
nothing untoward, said Mr Spencer.
"He continued life as normal, arranging to meet his friends
in the Coyt Club." Police again spoke to Armstrong on the
Saturday, but it was not until the Sunday that they made a full
search after he gave them an inappropriate reply to a question.
Scientific tests showed that Rosie had at some stage been beside
the settee, where there were the remains of a pool of blood.
Armstrong, wearing a dark pin-stripe suit, stood impassively
as he pleaded guilty to the child's murder. His barrister, Gilbert
Gray, QC, said he had suffered from psychological disorders
and had such low self-esteem that he had made 17 attempts to
commit suicide. "He is utterly mortified by the misery
he has caused; and by his plea he has moved to cause no more,
even though there was evidence of diminished responsibility."
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Ognall told Armstrong: "Your
counsel speaks of your state of anguish and of grief, yet it
can surely be as nothing compared to that suffered by little
Rosie Palmer's family. "There is evidence suggesting that
you have a severely disordered personality. But you are, and
were at the time, fully responsible for your actions."
It could have been my child, says ex-wife SHAUN Armstrong was
a social misfit whose strange behaviour and addiction to violence
had marked him out long before the killing of Rosie Palmer,
writes Nigel Bunyan. His life was scarred by the incest that
dominated his childhood.
He discovered as a teenager that he was the product of his mother's
relationship with his grandfather and, later, even when married,
he would return to her bed for sex. His two ex-wives recall
both how he beat them and enjoyed dressing up in women's clothing.
While Armstrong fantasised openly about having served with the
Royal Navy's Elite Special Boat Squadron in the Falklands, the
reality was that the former mining apprentice and security guard
had been discharged from the Navy after four months because
of his psychological disorder.
His first wife, Christine Teat, 40, married him in 1981, three
days before his 19th birthday. The couple met at the Comrades
Club in Horden, Co Durham, where Armstrong liked to dress as
a cowboy. "People told me he was a weirdo, but he was all
right in company," said Mrs Teat, who already had two children.
"I never loved him and he slapped me about a bit during
our courtship. I suppose I was too scared to call it off, and
I did want a father for my children." Mrs Teat realised
her mistake when, on their wedding night, he pounded her head
against the hearth of an open fire because she was reluctant
to have sex.
Other beatings followed, and Armstrong also threatened his stepchildren,
then aged four and five. On one occasion his new wife found
him wearing her nightie and dressing gown, and on another he
was in bed with his mother, Rachael, who has since died of cancer.
Mrs Teat finally walked out when Armstrong tried to molest her
daughter. "I shudder when I think of the monster I married,"
she said. "Little Rosie's murder brought it all back. It
could have been my daughter." |
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