By Daily Mail Reporter
08th March 2010
A prolific sex offender was today sentenced to life in prison after admitting to the kidnap, rape and murder of a teenager he ensnared on the Facebook social networking site.
Peter Chapman, who had previously been jailed for raping two teenagers, dramatically changed his plea as he was due to face trial at Teesside Crown Court for the killing of Ashleigh Hall.
He will serve a minimum 35 years before he can be considered for release.
Chapman, 33, posed as an attractive teenager on his profile page to lure the 17-year-old childcare student to him.
Her body was found dumped in a farmer's field near Sedgefield, County Durham, in October last year. The teenager, from Darlington, had been strangled and left near a known lovers' lane.
Today, Ashleigh's mother Andrea wept as Chapman entered the dock and entered his pleas in a barely audible voice while staring at the floor.
It emerged in court that 33-year-old Chapman, who had been brought up by his grandparents, had a long history of sexual offending.
Prosecutor Graham Reeds QC said Chapman had used the alter-ego of a teenage boy to entice Ashleigh into meeting him.
Chapman had created the profile on Facebook and used pictures of a boy in his late teens to lure the student to him.
'The photograph is not of him. It is of a bare-chested and good-looking boy, who is apparently in his late teens,' Mr Reeds told Teesside Crown Court.
'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 October 25 last year, he kidnapped, raped and murdered her.'
Mr Reeds said the teenager suffered from low-esteem and often boys were not interested in her.
'According to her friend, Ashleigh was interested in boys but they, generally, were not interested in her,' Mr Reeds said.
'She is thought to have had low self-esteem and friends thought if a male did show her attention she would likely be flattered by it.'
Mr Reeds said that, after Chapman first made contact with Ashleigh on Facebook, they began using another social network site called Tagged.com or the online messaging service Microsoft Windows Live Messenger, known as MSN.
She used the email address playgirl9239@hotmail.co.uk and Chapman used the address pete0606@hotmail.co.uk.
On October 19 Ashleigh contacted Chapman's alias, Peter Cartwright, on Tagged.com and that contact was repeated daily until October 24.
By October 23 Ashleigh had given Chapman her mobile phone number and he then sent her a series of extremely explicit texts.
'It is apparent from the very start that he was obsessed with sex and was trying to make arrangements to meet her,' Mr Reeds said.
Chapman arranged to meet Ashleigh near a golf club in Darlington on the evening of October 23.
'According to her college friend, Ashleigh was particularly giddy and excited on the morning of October 23,' said Mr Reeds.
'She also told another friend that she was meeting a 19-year-old boy, going out in his car, and possibly staying over at his house in Stockton.
'The prosecution say she was excited about meeting the person she thought was an attractive 19-year-old lad, who had a Facebook page showing his picture, and who had been sending her suggestive text messages.
'However, what she did not know was that all of these text messages and the computer 'chat' were from this defendant, a 33-year-old man who at the time was living out of the back of his car.'
However, Chapman did not show up and an angry Ashleigh returned home.
'By 8.19pm she was using her computer, accessing Tagged.com and the defendant's profile on Facebook,' Mr Reeds said.
'No doubt she was trying to make contact and discover why he had failed to turn up,' he said.
'She also attempted to contact him the following day through his profile on Facebook and on Tagged.com.'
Mr Reeds said Chapman did not show up on the Friday night because he knew that Ashleigh would be expecting a teenage boy, not a man in his early 30s.
'The prosecution say that the defendant wanted to meet Ashleigh and have sex with her,' he said.
'But he realised that she was expecting to meet an attractive 19-year-old lad called Peter and not a 33-year-old man who looked nothing like the photograph.
'Even in a dark location at the edge of playing field the prospects of her getting into his car were slim.
'He needed a plan which made it more likely that he would get into her car so that he would be able to overpower her for sex.
'Having invented 19-year-old Peter to make contact with girls he now decided to invent Peter's dad in order to persuade Ashleigh that it was safe to get into his car.
'The plan he devised was calculated and wicked and it worked.'
Mr Reeds said Ashleigh and Chapman were chatting on MSN at around 6pm on October 25, although experts have not been able to recover the records from Ashleigh's computer.
'It is however an obvious inference that they were discussing meeting,' he said.
'That the defendant had persuaded Ashleigh that she could stay overnight with him and that she would be collected from home by his father.
It is the prosecution case that the defendant, pretending to be Pete's dad, did pick her up from her home.
'From there he drove towards Stockton on the A66 but then turned north on to the A177.
'With Ashleigh apparently unaware of what was about to happen, he drove her up the A177 where eventually he pulled into a dark and secluded lay-by at a place called Thorpe Larches and sexually attacked her.'
Mr Reeds said Chapman had spent the early part of October 25 - the day of Ashleigh's murder - visiting the area where he was to eventually take her.
'Having organised the 'Pete's dad' cover story, having researched the location of the intended crime scene and having just travelled to the area to check it, the defendant had now sprung the trap,' the barrister told the court.
'All he had to do now was wait for her to fall into it.'
Mr Reeds said Chapman, pretending to be Pete's father, texted Ashleigh and wrote: 'Hi hun its pete's dad are you sure you don't mind me picking you up? Pete is really looking forward to seeing you and yes its ok for you to stay.'
A few seconds later, Ashleigh replied: "No its fine I dnt mind I trust him so I trust u and thank u.'
A short time later Chapman sent her another text message, pretending to be Pete, which said: "Me dad's on his way babe he says excuse the state of him lol He's been at work lol he doesn't have to come in and meet your mum does he lol he'll be a mess probably lol oh and are you wearin some sexy underwear for me hehe x.'
She replied: 'Okaii babe and no he doesn't lol and its okaii haha, wat car has he got and u will have to wait and see wnt u
x x.'Mr Reeds said: 'Whilst she was in the car, she sent and received a series of text messages that demonstrates the extent to which she was taken in by the defendant's deception that she was being picked up by Pete's dad.'
'The evidence that was later recovered supports the proposition that, when at Thorpe Larches lay-by, Ashleigh Hall was forced to perform oral sex on the defendant.
'After removing her lower clothing she was gagged with duct tape wound around her face, bound by the forearms with tape and forced her into sexual intercourse.
'At some stage the bindings around her arms were removed - most likely to allow her to pull up and fasten her lower clothing.
'But then, after the rape, her arms were bound up again and further tape was put over her face, suffocating her to death.'
Chapman's confession to police was caught on camera.
Footage released showed him telling a custody officer: 'I killed someone last night.
'I need to tell somebody from CID where the body is. It hasn't been reported yet.
Chapman later told a detective: 'I had to tell you today. I couldn't just leave her like that.
'Has anyone been in touch with her family?'
In court, the extent of Chapman's sexual offending past came to light.
In 1992, aged just 15, Chapman had been the subject of a sexual assault investigation.
Four years later, he was accused of raping a girl he had befriended. She became pregnant but the allegations were later dropped.
In December 1996, aged 19, he found himself before Teesside Crown Court accused of attacking two teenage prostitutes.
He had stolen a car, fitted it with false number plates and cruised the streets of Middlesbrough before picking up a 17-year-old street girl, driving her to County Durham and raping her at knifepoint.
Two days later he did exactly the same thing to another prostitute.
Chapman, of no fixed address, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and, on his release in 2001, he moved to Merseyside where he befriended a woman and moved in with her.
In 2002 he was arrested by Cheshire Police for the rape and kidnap of a prostitute in Ellesmere Port. The case was discontinued.
Chapman also pleaded guilty today to failing to notify police of a change of address, as required by the sex offenders register.
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