Alesha MacPhail’s killer finally admits to rape & murder, says he told her “I’m a friend of your father, I’m taking you home” as he carried her from her room

Teenager who abducted Alesha MacPhail, 6, from her room after which he raped and murdered her has confessed to his crimes and was today locked up for at least 27 years.

Aaron Campbell, 16, said Alesha was “drowsy” when he went into her home on the Isle of Bute and then to her bedroom and took her from her bed. She woke up when they got outside and asked who he was and where they were going. And he lied to her that he was her father’s friend and was taking her home.

The child was found dead in the woods hours after being reported missing from her father’s house. She had suffered horrific injuries and had been raped before being killed in the “most brutal fashion”.

Campbell was convicted at Glasgow High Court on February 21 when a jury found him guilty unanimously after a nine-day trial over her death on July 2 last year.  

Campbell had denied murder until now.

Judge Lord Matthews revealed the killer said in a report “it took everything to stop him laughing” at points of the trial, and added: “All I thought about was killing her.”

Today, the judge told him: “Not once did I detect a flicker of emotion from you.”

Lord Matthews said that according to the report, on the night of the murder Campbell had been at a party drinking and went into Alesha’s house looking for cannabis, and entered her bedroom. When he saw her all he thought was about killing her.

Campbell said, “all I thought about was killing her when I saw her.”

Sentencing Campbell, Lord Matthews said he was a cold and calculated individual who had shown “not a flicker of remorse” during the trial. Judge Lord Matthews said social work and psychologist reports about Campbell “had painted a clear picture of a cold, callous, calculating, remorseless and dangerous individual”. 

After the sentence was read out family members shouted “evil” and “beast” as Campbell was led down to the cells.

Alexa’s father and his girlfriend at Glasgow High Court today