Becky Watts' Killers Jailed For 'Evil' Act
Stepbrother Nathan Matthews and his girlfriend Shauna Hoare are sentenced as Becky's father said the teen "never stood a chance".
Friday 13 November 2015 14:18, UK
The judge in the Becky Watts murder trial was in tears after sentencing killers Nathan Matthews to life in prison and Shauna Hoare to 17 years behind bars.
Mr Justice Dingemans became emotional as he started paying tribute to Becky's family in court.
Matthews, 28, was jailed for a minimum of 33 years for murder after he suffocated his stepsister in her bedroom following a sexually motivated kidnap plot.
The 16-year-old suffered more than 40 injuries to her body as she fought for her life in Bristol on 19 February.
Matthews' girlfriend, Hoare, 21, was convicted of Becky's manslaughter at the city's crown court.
Both were found guilty of kidnap, perverting the course of justice, preventing a lawful burial and possessing two stun gun torches.
The judge said: "In my judgment the appropriate sentence for Mr Matthews is a mandatory life sentence with a minimum term of 33 years.
"This means that Mr Matthews, as a 28-year-old man, will be 61 before he might be considered for release and the reality is that he might never be released."
After Becky was killed, Matthews and Hoare then bundled her body into their car before driving it to their home where it would later be dismembered in their bathroom.
The remains were then hidden in a nearby shed where they were eventually discovered on 2 March.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Becky's father Darren Galsworthy, whose wife Anjie is Matthews' mother, said: "The heartless, cold manner of this despicable act of evil can never be forgiven or forgotten."
He added: "Becky was so small and fragile she never stood a chance."
He said when police told him that her body parts had been found "it's like being cast off a cliff into the bottomless depth of despair and non-belief".
He also said not only did the killers cruelly rob 5ft 1in Becky of life, they also took her dignity in death and did this on her brother Danny's 20th birthday.
In another statement, Becky's mother Tanya Watts said the thought of her daughter being dismembered was "always on her mind".
There was "nothing to celebrate anymore, not without Becky", she added.
Ms Watts said the teenager had been "robbed of her future", adding: "I keep thinking about Becky...and I am furious".
"Becky must have been so scared...knowing that her last moments must have been filled with fear," she went on.
A six-week trial heard Matthews and Hoare planned to kidnap her as a part of a sexually motivated plot based on their shared interest in pretty, petite teenagers.
The couple, who fantasised about bringing a teenage girl to the attic of their squalid home, had packed a kidnap kit in the boot of their Vauxhall Zafira.
CCTV shows Matthews buying a circular saw the day after murdering Becky - staff say he even haggled over the price.
Former police officer and lecturer in criminology at the University of Gloucestershire, Dr Jane Monkton Smith, said he showed behaviour commonly seen in serial killers.
She said: "I would say that puts him somewhere on the psychopathic spectrum and that ability to be able to behave completely normally after you've done something which is absolutely abhorrent is very worrying and is the kind of behaviour that we normally see more in serial killers."