Tragic, a man killed 16-year-old Louise Smith because he lost control in a fit of rage during an argument about her drug use.

The man named Shane Mays, 30, led his niece to a woodland area before inflicting a series of heavy blows to her face and then violating her body in a sexually motivated attack.

He admits manslaughter after he was arrested and taken to Bristol Prison.

Louise’s body was found badly burned in Havant Thicket, Hampshire, on May 21 – 13 days after her disappearance on VE Day.

Mays, who is married to the victim’s aunt, told that Louise appeared happy when she first moved in with them in April following a dispute with her mother, Rebecca Cooper.

But, he also admitted that he would get angry with his niece, who refused to do chores and smoked cannabis in the house. Mays claimed Louise asked him to accompany her to a nearby park on the day of her death because she didn’t like to walk alone.

The defendant said she confided in him that she might split up with her boyfriend.

The court heard Louise had tried to run away the day before she went missing and his wife had been angry and upset that she didn’t want to live with the couple.