A Chilling Betrayal: The Case Of Tia Sharp

tia was a sparky girl who was full of life but you took that life from her all that lay ahead of her a career loves and family of her own will now never be tia christine sharpe was born to parents stephen and natalie on the 30th of june 2000. steven split from natalie when their daughter was a baby despite her parents separation her family was incredibly close-knit and they lived in croydon south london tia had a deep and close bond with her maternal grandmother christine t and natalie and christine are a tight family unit with natalie saying the three of them were friends as well as family the close bond continues as tia grows up with christine saying tia would occasionally call her mom i wouldn't bat an eyelid christine said the love that natalie had for tia was reciprocated as tia adored her mother in return and the pair were inseparable tia saw her father every holiday until the relationship between stephen and natalie soured as she entered secondary school tia was confident happy and never afraid to voice her opinion and have herself be heard she was feisty and brave with her mom saying she was often the loudest in the room in 2002 christine was working as a barmaid in a pub in reigns park south west london it was here that she met a man named stuart hazel he was 10 years her junior and they started a relationship in 2007 with stewart moving into her home in new addington natalie had had a fling with hazel before he began seeing her mother he shared a good bond with tia and she called him grandad as did tia's two younger brothers although she achieved good grades in school and was popular with her teachers her attendance was an issue in 2008 social services became concerned with natalie and her partner using cannabis and therefore became involved with the family a report issued by social services said that while there was no neglect or abuse towards tia the family and family dynamic was dysfunctional after carrying out a probe into tia's chaotic home life social workers concluded in november 2011 that no further assessment would be needed instead it was decided that tia schools should be asked to keep an eye on her and report any concerns t would regularly spend the night with christine and stuart even when christine had to work a night shift she would stay there with her step-grandfather in june 2012 tea was celebrating her birthday with her mother and grandmother she had the option to bring a friend along for the celebrations and she chose stuart illustrating how close she was to him august 2012. unbeknownst to natalie tia had messaged her grandmother in stuart asking if it was okay if she stayed there for a couple of days stuart sent a text message to natalie saying that tea was welcome to stay christine wouldn't be there but she could still stay if she wanted to tia was excited to go she ran to kiss her mother goodbye and then set off to her grandmother's house thursday august 2nd stuart meets tear as she gets off the tram at 4 50 pm and cctv follows them as they go shopping in new addington [Music] later that night christine called the house and spoke to stuart asking if everything was okay and he confirmed it was and they were playing on the playstation together the following day friday august 3rd christine returned home from work and stuart told her that tia had gone into croydon to buy some new shoes five miles away in the wick gift center by six o'clock that night she still hadn't returned home so christine phoned natalie who confirmed she hadn't seen her either they tried contacting her via text message and facebook but heard nothing back they decided to go driving around the area to see if they could spot her hoping perhaps the public transport was running late and that was causing a delay by 10 o'clock and with still no sign christine stewart and natalie headed to the police station to report her as missing [Music] stewart told the investigators that he had seen tia around midday before she headed into croydon to go shopping a phone call from a neighbor also suggested that they had seen her leaving the property they searched the house where she had been staying with her grandmother in stuart but no trace of her was found as she clearly wasn't in the house the police widened their investigation to the local area the story of the missing 12 year old spreads like wildfire with major news outlets picking up on the story [Music] stuart hazel was seen leading one of the searches police said that she had only taken a small amount of money with her and did not take her travel card or her mobile phone adding that this was very out of character for her area commander neil bassou stressed the investigation was still a missing person's inquiry and did not suggest there were any suspects in the case the family wants here home they miss her dreadfully and i want to assure you of all the work the met is doing and we are doing everything we can everything we possibly can to find her and trying to support the family at this time let me give you a sense of the scale of the inquiry at present i have had olympic resources redirected to help in the search for tia and over the last three days or so that has meant more than 100 extra uniform officers in the croydon and mitchum areas there are over 80 officers working on this case 40 of them detectives 40 of them specialist search officers we've collected more than 800 hours so far of cctv footage from buses from trams and we viewed more than 120 hours of that cctv in lifetime and that continues round the clock i would also like to thank everybody in the croydon and mitchum communities that has helped with the investigation so far i spent time with councillors and with members of the pathfinders charity on the new edington estate yesterday evening i was completely moved by their generosity their energy and commitment we were stopped many times on the way to and from by people handing out leaflets showing tear and to everyone who is doing that i wanted to say thank you and please continue to look for her can i once again thank every member of the public who has phoned into the incident room the met's priority at this time is to find tears safe and well the family were absolutely distraught natalie told a local news outlet we all feel terrible we think she's been taken but we just don't know there's no cctv we know absolutely nothing i wish to god i could tell you something my baby girl walked out and she vanished on august 7 the press conference was held dci nick scholar gave the press in public a description of the missing tear cctv image of tear that was taken on the third on thursday evening thursday the second before she went missing and in it she's wearing the outer clothing that we believe she was wearing when she went missing the only difference is the footwear i'll hold it up you'll see it's slightly different to the um description that was initially released in as much as it's not a yellow tube type top you can see it's a yellow vest top on the front of it there's a pattern um it's an animal of some description possibly a dog or a cat the tight faded jeans are the same at the same description and she's wearing ugg boots in this photo but she was wearing the black nike trainers with the pink nike swoosh on so that's that's a slight difference tia's uncle david sharp also made an appeal begging for her to come home she is a 12 year old normal girl she has never run away she's got no reason to run away she is a playful child she's not an adult form of any way but she is very clued up in traveling and local areas and people she knows come to us come home phone the police anything um and i want to say thank you to the police for doing everything that they can and the public for being our support and being out there day and night um i urge you not to stop i want to found so please do what you're doing there were 55 different sightings reported by members of the public but the police weren't able to substantiate any of them as stuart hazel was the last person to see tear alive he felt as if that made him a potential suspect and so contacted itv to give an interview and clear his name on august 9 he gave an interview to mark williams thomas an investigative journalist and former police officer for itv news denying that he had anything to do with the disappearance of his step-granddaughter well if they believe what they read in the papers they can do whatever they like because i know deep down in my yard that tia walked out my house she walked out there and i know damn well because she was seen walking down the pathway i know she made that track down so that way what happened after that is i don't know we're stuck inside you know i mean we go them her papers outside all putting accusations down and you know i made bad mouthing everyone and it's just what you don't need you know i know they're trying to open that but they can help in other ways i mean by finding her back in the middle of his interview christine came home and hazel removed his microphone to pause the interview and offer her comfort as there was still no sign of tear the police decided to conduct another search of the house this time with the assistance of police dogs but still no trace of tear was found [Music] a week after she had been reported missing on friday the 10th of august and a day after he had given the interview with itv stuart hazel got up early and left the house when christine later woke up she smelt something in her house but couldn't locate where it was coming from when the police arrived they asked her to leave the house immediately so they could conduct another search that afternoon a fourth and final search was conducted of the house in new addington in the attic they found a body due to the heat and the fact the body had been wrapped up and stored in the attic the body had decomposed to the point where the person was visually unidentifiable croydon central mp gavin barwell said the police have yet to formally confirm that the body is tears yet this devastating development will come as a huge blow to her family and the community in new addington all of whom have worked tirelessly to try and find her over the past week a post-mortem on the body began the same day the discovery had been made august 10th and was paused later that day by the 16th of august the postmortem still had not been completed however it's an inquest into the death which opened that day it was confirmed that the body was that of tia sharp due to the state of decomposition dental records had to be used to identify her the post-mortem was later concluded without establishing a cause of death experts told this is croydon today that the delay in finding the body had made it much harder to determine exactly how tia had died and without a cause of death the prosecution would find it much harder to build a case however detectives suspected and it was widely reported that tia sharp had potentially been smothered although this was not officially proven to be the cause of death [Music] area commander neil bassou said the priority was now to support her devastated family as they tried to ascertain exactly what had happened with tia's body now being found the eyes of investigators quickly fell on one person christine's partner stuart hazel but officers soon realized that hazel was on the run he was picked up on cctv buying a bottle of vodka from a shop on canning hill lane in south london they warned the public not to approach him if they saw him and to instead call 999 the police quickly mobilized and launched a search to try and find him following a tip-off from a member of the public who had spotted him he was arrested at 8 25 on cannon hill common in morden as he was taken away in a police van members of the public held abuse as it went past the police also announced soon after that they had made two further arrests later that evening at 11 55 christine was arrested on suspicion of murder and her neighbor had been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender while christine was being questioned natalie had to watch on television as her daughter's body was removed from the home due to the state of decomposition natalie was not allowed to see her daughter's body since news of the discovery broke several people laid tributes for her near a garage close to her grandmother's house which still had a caller in place on the approach to it christine was later released on bail but would not be allowed anywhere near natalie or her other grandchildren [Music] the police soon started to learn the sinister truth about the man tia had called grandad stuart hazel came from a highly dysfunctional background and had a troubled relationship with his parents during his childhood he was on the radar of social services as his father was in prison and his mother was a sex worker he would also soon end up in care he struggled in school and would often skip classes and according to dr kerry nixon it was also clear that he had a low iq hazel would later say that he had been raped when he was 16 years old he had 30 previous convictions and had been to prison three times his convictions included dealing drugs burglary criminal damage theft as well as racially motivated violence and grievous bodily harm also known as gbh as hazel was still using drugs this would often lead him to continued reckless behavior for example in 2010 he was convicted of carrying a machete and was subsequently given a 12-month custodial sentence despite this christine stood by him and said she never saw any violent behavior in the home she said although he drunk and had a criminal record he was a gentle giant she was prepared to put his past from before they met behind them she was however unaware of the extent of his drug abuse and his increasingly sinister thoughts as tia continued to grow up little did she or her family know that hazel was having sexual fantasies about her he was fascinated and fixated with her and was convinced that she loved him he became infatuated with her and as she started to develop into a young woman these feelings started to intensify in the last year of her life he became increasingly more voyeuristic and started filming her in secret on one occasion she came home from school and started to put cream on her legs as they were dry and he started to secretly record her his filming of tia was growing increasingly sinister and he started filming her while she was asleep nick scholler who is the senior investigating officer described one of these occasions hazel had filmed her while she was asleep getting very close to her but then pulling back when she stirred he then panned the camera up to the wall momentarily to film his shadow looking over her he removed the door on the bathroom and messed with the light fitting in her bedroom which police later believed was so he could use that as a spy hole to watch her he also began watching and searching for more extreme and violent pornography on his phone including pedophilia it has been suggested by forensic psychologist dr kerry nixon that hazel may have made sexual advances towards tia and murdered her when she rejected said advances and threatened to tell her mother one thing that many people wanted answers to was why had it taken four searches to find her body in the attic investigators apologized to the family saying this was the result of human error commander neil bassou apologised to tia sharp's mother for the delay in finding her body he said that a review would be undertaken to ensure such a failing is not repeated on the 23rd of august police commissioner bernard hogan howe addressed the failure of his force to find her body he said if we thought it was an individual human error then that would explain it but we're carrying out a review because we're not happy that explains it we're trying not to have a knee-jerk reaction we need some time to understand what happened and what failed to happen we want to learn lessons from this particular case we have apologized and i repeat that apology to tia's mom and family for not having found tia's body sooner as christine was released on bail investigators turned their attention back to stuart hazel what can you tell me about the murder of tia show ups joe stewart i'll cut the miniature muscle issue please okay yeah that's no problem um it's ten past one we'll stop the tapes and then we'll leave the room and give you a chance to have a chat he gave a defense case statement which said that he and tia had been messing around and playing during this he alleged that she had fallen down the stairs but appeared to be unharmed and okay he then said that after drinking excessively through the evening he passed out and upon waking up he found her dead on the floor and as a result hid her body in the attic once in the attic he put her between the rafters and pushed her tight against the roof where the roof met the floor in a dark area of the loft covering the body with debris from around the attic next to the body carefully wrapped in small plastic bags inside a black bin bag but he has clothes that she was wearing that night as well as her broken glasses christine was subsequently cleared of having any involvement in her granddaughter's killing and on the 7th of december the metropolitan police announced that she would not face charges in a previous search officers had found two memory cards one of which was very well hidden in a door frame of a downstairs room the memory cards in question contained both deleted and undeleted material made up of photos and videos the last shot on the memory card had been deleted but officers were able to recover it the image was of tia who had been posed in a sexually suggestive position they showed the image in question to a pathologist who determined that she was likely dead when the photograph had been taken other images showed hazel posing naked in a similar position to the one she was seen in in the photograph the memory card also contained voyeuristic images of tia taken when she was alive in the early hours of the 12th of august hazel was charged with murder of the girl who had called him grandad he appeared before camberwell green magistrates court on the 13th of august via a video link dressed in a blue t-shirt he was seen on the video link sitting at a table with a policewoman standing behind him he spoke to confirm his name date of birth and his address as the lindens new addington south london where tia had been found dead no plea was entered and the case was committed to the old bailey courthouse in london for trial he was remounted in custody to belmarsh prison where he was kept in isolation for his own safety while in prison awaiting trial stuart hazel wrote a letter to his father and he was sticking to his story [Music] he described her death as an accident and denied there was any sexual motive [Music] his main concern was that his father didn't think his son was a nonce a slang term for a pedophile tia sharp was cremated on the 14th of september after a private family funeral on the 5th of february 2013 the neighbor who had been arrested at the same time of christine was charged with wasting police time after telling the police he had seen tia alive on the day she was murdered he appeared at croydon magistrates court on the 28th of february 2013 where he denied the charge against him and was released on bail for a one-day trial on july 29th on the 5th of august 2013 he was found guilty of wasting police time and was sentenced to five months in prison after an agonizing investigation it was soon time for the trial of stewart hazel and his plea was not guilty he showed no emotion during his trial and refused to acknowledge any of tia's family the courtroom was shocked when they were shown the images that had been taken of tia when the photo of her that had been taken post-mortem was shown to the jury her mother natalie had to leave the courtroom traumatized them in tears after four days of distressing evidence being given stuart hazel changed his plea to guilty tearshop's father said hearing what hazel did to his daughter shattered his heart hazel will be sentenced tomorrow in my opinion it will not be enough he should serve his time then be hung the police say stuart hazel must be removed from society hazel is a violent and dangerous man who poses a significant risk to young girls however he refused to reveal exactly what happened that night or why he had taken her life in the most brutal way imaginable when sentencing hazel the judge emphasized how the trust christine and natalie had placed in him had been shattered he received life in prison with a minimum term of 38 years that he must serve before he can even be considered for parole this will mean he will be 75 years old before he is eligible the judge mr justice nicol said he could not impose a whole life tariff as he was not sure hazel's motivation was sexual or that it was premeditated he said tia's mother trusted you to look after tia you breached that trust in the most grievous way possible your guilty plea came on day five you said you wish to avoid causing further stress to his family that is commendable but they have had to endure four days of a very public trial there were gasps from the public gallery tia's family was sobbing loudly and as hazel was sent down there was the cry of beast from a man in the public gallery now the judge said that he could have imposed a whole life a tariff on stuart hazel but to do that he would have had to be absolutely sure that the murder itself was sexually motivated he had no doubt he said that hazel had sexually assaulted tia sharp but he had to be sure that the murder itself was sexually motivated and he was not sure now in his sentencing remarks he said to hazel that tia was a sparky girl who was full of life but you took that life from her all that lay ahead of her a career loves and family of her own will now never be now after the sentence was handed down uh tia's mother natalie sharp left the court this morning she was asked whether she believed that the sentence whether she was happy with the sentence to which she replied no and an uncle of tyr also said that this sentence should have been longer the aftermath of tia's death was felt by so many people the house that christine and stewart had lived in and where tia had been murdered was demolished in 2013. in july 2013 her father stephen carter said he backed a plan for websites to block certain search terms and warn people when they try and view illegal content in november 2013 partly in response to the murders of tia sharp and april jones a little girl who was abducted and murdered by a stranger the search engines google and bing modified their systems to block results from searches aimed at producing child abuse images tia sharp was a confident happy and feisty young girl whose trust was betrayed in the most appalling way imaginable [Music] those who knew and loved her are determined that she will be remembered for the joy she brought to so many people and not by the tragic way that she left this earth [Music] [Music]

Channel: Truly Criminal

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Length: 27min 33sec (1653 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 16 2021