Scaffolder guilty of Charlotte murder

Scaffolder Nicholas Rose was today found guilty of murdering missing 16-year-old Charlotte Pinkney by a jury at Exeter Crown Court.

Scaffolder Nicholas Rose was today found guilty of murdering missing 16-year-old Charlotte Pinkney by a jury at Exeter Crown Court.

The jury convicted him by an 11 to one majority verdict after 25 and a half hours of deliberations.

Rose, 23, of Foreland View, Ilfracombe, north Devon, had denied murdering Charlotte between 27 February and 8 March last year.

The teenager's body has never been found despite extensive police searches.

Rose slumped with his head in his hands in the glass fronted dock, from where he was led out and collapsed.

Members of Miss Pinkney's family wept when the verdict was announced.

Miss Pinkney probably died, fighting for her life, during an argument with Rose about sex, the jury had heard from prosecutor Paul Dunkels QC.

The teenager had been out to pubs and clubs on the night of February 27 last year before going on to a house party in Ilfracombe, which Rose also attended.

She left the party around 4.30am on February 28 in a borrowed red Vauxhall Cavalier, driven by Rose, together with 26 year old fisherman Dean Copp.

They called at a house in the town where Mr Copp got out to knock on the door - turning to see Miss Pinkney on Rose's lap in the driving seat and apparently kissing him.

Rose then drove off with Miss Pinkney, leaving him standing on the road.

Later that morning Rose was seen with the car in a tunnel near two local reservoirs - an area where Miss Pinkney's bag was also found.

Rose appeared to be cleaning the interior of the car, and the next day used a vacuum cleaner on it, the court heard.

Rose told a friend that scratches on his neck, forearm and legs were from scrambling in bushes.

The prosecutor said they were "typical of injuries a girl might inflict trying to protect herself".

He maintained there had "plainly been a struggle in the car, and she had scratched and gripped him as she tried to protect herself".

Rose, he said, "took her somewhere to see if he could have sex, there must have been an argument, there was a struggle, and he ended up killing her and hiding the body".

The court heard Charlotte's blood was on the car boot carpet and on the roof lining of the vehicle.

It was also on items in the boot - on jump leads, and also on a child's hooded jumper, on which Rose's blood was also found.

Her blood was also on the tongue of one of Rose's training shoes.

A button of the type on her trousers waistband was found in the vacuum cleaner Rose had used in the car.

And a piece of black elastic, of the type used in ladies underwear, was found under the Cavalier's front passenger seat - Miss Pinkney had been wearing a black thong.

One of her boots was found on waste ground less than a minute from Rose's home.

And a bottle of Hugo Boss perfume, similar to one bought for Miss Pinkney by her 42 year old boyfriend Gus O'Brien, was found in the Cavalier front passenger door compartment.

The court heard Miss Pinkney lived at differing times with Mr O'Brien at his Ilfracombe flat, and at the homes of her divorced parents in the town.

Rose told the court he drove off with Miss Pinkney because he saw lights he thought were the police and he was a disqualified driver.

He said he never had a sexual relationship with Miss Pinkney, and dropped her off outside the community centre in Ilfracombe and never saw her again.