Bahaya Facebook
Peter Chapman (born January 1977) is a British
convicted murderer who has featured heavily in the media in the United
Kingdom and has become known as the "Facebook
killer." He was jailed for a minimum of 35 years in March 2010 and his
crime has led to serious criticism of police monitoring and Facebook. Chapman
was brought up by his grandparents in Stockton-on-Tees
and had been charged with sexual offences before the murder of Ashleigh Hall.
He was first investigated at the age of 15, and four years later he received a
seven-year prison sentence for raping two prostitutes at knifepoint. He was
released in 2001, and had eventually fallen off the 'police radar.' This has
led to serious criticism and a report to the Independent Police Complaints
Commission.[4][5] He
has been convicted of motoring offences and theft. Chapman used a fake Facebook
profile, impersonating a teenage boy, to befriend Ashleigh Hall, a 17-year-old
college student from Darlington. In reality, he was a 33-year old man living in
his car. She met him on 25 October 2009 and according to the prosecution,
"When she met him on 25 October last year, he kidnapped, raped and
murdered her." On 3 March 2010, Facebook, as a direct response to the
killing, warned under-18 users not to meet people from the internet, and gave
advice on how to stay safe online. They also said they were "deeply
saddened".
peter-chapman-facebook-killer
Facebook killer sentenced to life for teenager's murder
Peter Chapman, who used fake Facebook profile to lure
student Ashleigh Hall, told he must serve a minimum of 35 years. Sex offender
Peter Chapman was today sentenced to life imprisonment after he admitted
kidnapping, raping and murdering a teenage student he had ensnared using a fake
Facebook profile. Chapman, 33, of no fixed address, changed his plea as he was
due to face trial at Teesside crown court for the killing of Ashleigh Hall, a
17-year-old student.
He was told by Judge Peter Fox QC that he must serve a minimum of 35 years
before he could be considered for release.Ashleigh's body was found dumped in a field near Sedgefield, County Durham, in October. The teenager, from Darlington, had been strangled.
Chapman also pleaded guilty to failing to notify police of a change of address, as required by the sex offenders register.
Graham Reeds QC, prosecuting, said Chapman had used the fake identity of a teenage boy to entice Ashleigh into meeting him.
He created the fake profile on Facebook and used pictures of a boy in his late teens, the court heard.
"The photograph is not of him. It is of a bare-chested and good-looking boy who is apparently in his late teens," Reeds said. "The defendant is a somewhat plainer looking man who could pass for being rather older than his 33 years.
"The prosecution case is that the defendant used this handsome alter ego to entice 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall into meeting him. When she met him, on 25 October last year, he kidnapped, raped and murdered her."
The prosecutor said the teenager suffered from low-esteem and boys were uninterested in her.
"According to her friends, Ashleigh was interested in boys but they, generally, were not interested in her," he said, adding that her friends thought that, if a male did show her attention, "she would likely be flattered by it".
The night before her body was found, she told her mother she was going to stay with a friend but had instead made the decision to meet Chapman.
Chapman, who was brought up by his grandparents in Stockton-on-Tees, has a history of sexual offending, it has since emerged. He was the subject of several sexual assault investigations, beginning when he was 15. In 1996, then 19, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for raping two prostitutes at knifepoint. He was released in 2001.
The unemployed defendant, who used to live in Kirkby, Liverpool, and has links to Teesside, was arrested by traffic police on suspicion of minor motoring offences soon after he had dumped Ashleigh's fully-clothed body.
He was held for questioning in Middlesbrough, where he asked to speak to detectives and what had been a routine inquiry took a more sinister turn. He led police to the spot, near a lovers' lane, where Ashleigh's body was found almost 24 hours after she had left the family home.
In the days after the killing, Ashleigh's 39-year-old mother, Andrea, called for the return of the death penalty for killers. Before Chapman's conviction, she said: "Whoever did this is going to go prison and sleep in a comfortable bed, but one day they will be out. They will be living and breathing as normal. But my daughter's life had been ended at 17 – and my life has ended because she is not here."
Ashleigh studied childcare at college in Darlington and helped her mother bring up the family's other children.
"I could understand it if Ashleigh had died because of illness," the victim's mother said. "But to actually have someone take someone's life is just unbearable. Ashleigh was my rock."
Her daughter loved chatting to friends online and spent much of her spare cash on her mobile phone so she could also text them. Her mother said: "Ashleigh wasn't a bad kid. She wasn't naughty. She made one mistake and has paid for it with her life."
Durham police led the inquiry, which involved contacting 2,500 people who knew Chapman through internet sites.
|
Facebook killer Peter Chapman monitoring probed
|
||
Police
monitoring of a sex offender who killed a teenager he met on Facebook is to
be investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Merseyside
Police waited nine months before issuing a wanted alert for Peter Chapman,
33, after its officers lost track of his whereabouts.
Chapman
was jailed for life for raping and murdering Ashleigh Hall, 17, in a field in
County Durham, last October.
Ashleigh's
mother, Andrea, called for tighter monitoring of sex offenders.
She
branded her daughter's murderer "inhuman" and said authorities
should reveal where sex offenders live.
Merseyside
Police referred its handling and review of the Chapman case to the IPCC after
Home Secretary Alan Johnson demanded answers.
'Very
great' danger
He
called on police to "respond" and said lessons "needed to be
learned" following Ashleigh's murder. After Chapman was jailed at
Teesside Crown Court, on Monday, it emerged police lost track of him when he
left his home in Kirkby, Merseyside, 10 months before the murder.
The
court had heard that since the age of 15, Chapman had been the subject of
several sexual assault investigations, including being jailed for seven years
in 1996 for raping two prostitutes at knifepoint. In the latest case, he
posed as a teenage boy on the social-networking site and organised to meet
Ashleigh, the jury was told. He then suffocated her and dumped her body in a
farmer's field near Sedgefield. Sentencing him, Judge Peter Fox said Chapman
was, and had been for a "considerable time", a "very
great" danger to young women.
Case
referred
After
he disappeared, police made attempts to trace him locally, but it was not
until September, one month before Ashleigh was murdered, that the force
issued a nationwide wanted alert.
Merseyside
Police confirmed a national alert on Chapman - who was still on parole - was
only issued when he could not be contacted over a traffic offence.
Officers
had last visited his house in Liverpool in January 2009.
Speaking
about the IPCC investigation, a Merseyside Police spokesman said: "An
internal review was carried out following the arrest of Peter Chapman in
October last year.
"Following
the review, a number of procedural improvements were identified and
subsequently implemented.
"However,
in view of the public interest and concerns raised following the
conviction... and to ensure complete transparency in terms of this particular
matter, the force has referred it to the Independent Police Complaints
Commission."
In
October last year, Ashleigh was attracted by a picture of a young,
bare-chested man that Chapman - calling himself Peter Cartwright - had posted
on the website.
Dumped
body
Later
that month, she told her mother she was going to stay with a friend. Text
messages showed she thought she was being picked up by 'Peter Cartwright's'
father.
Chapman
raped and killed her, before dumping her body in a gully, close to Old
Stockton Road near Sedgefield. He was arrested the following day.
During
an appearance on ITV's This Morning, Ashleigh's mother Andrea Hall called for
the addresses of sex offenders to be made public.
She
said: "He took my daughter. He shouldn't be allowed human rights; he's
not human, is he?
"He
murdered my daughter. She was 17 and he knew exactly what he was doing and
there was no remorse whatsoever.
"He
had it planned... and she was such a lovely girl and that's probably why he
targeted her."
Mrs
Hall added she would never let her remaining three daughters, aged between
one and six, use social networking websites.
Mr
Johnson said the government was looking at ways to alert authorities when
convicted sex offenders were online.
He
said: "What our people in the Child Exploitation and Online Protection
(Ceop) agency do is go online themselves to try and lure in these people.
"Whether
we can get the technology to flag up when [sex offenders are] online is
something we need to look at."
|
||
No comments:
Post a Comment