Claire Tiltman murder: 'Evil' ex-milkman jailed after 20-year fight for justice

A "predatory armed killer" was today found guilty of the "frenzied and remorseless" murder of a schoolgirl - almost two decades after he was first questioned by police investigating the crime.

ITV News Correspondent Rupert Evelyn reports:

Colin Ash-Smith, now 46, stabbed Claire Tiltman "no less than nine times" in a dark Kent alleyway while she walked to a friend's house. She died from the wounds, just four days after her 16th birthday.

ITV News pictures relayed in court showed that Ash-Smith - who planned a spate of similar attacks - attended the young woman's funeral wearing the same jacket he wore when he killed her.

Ash-Smith had already been jailed for life in 1996 for stabbing 22-year-old Charlotte Barnard yards from where Tiltman was murdered in Greenhithe, as well as attempting to rape and murder another woman in 1988.

However, despite being questioned in 1995 over the death of the would-be firefighter, police were unable to gather evidence to charge him.

The court heard that he kept a chilling "assault plan" - a detailed diary of his stalking of numerous women in the local area.

Ash-Smith used it to describe several attempted attacks similar to Tiltman's murder - and even ranked the incidents on their success.

In one, he dubbed the 1988 attempted attack which contributed to his original prison sentence as his "masterpiece" - rating it "95% successful".

The victim was fortunate to survive the attack.

He also wrote of less-successful attempts, including one where he broke into a woman's home and cut her clothes before fleeing, and another at an old people's home which he called a "total abysmal failure".

In an unusual step, only possible due to a change in the law in 2003, the diaries were used as evidence in his trial, and provided the backbone for the prosecution's ultimately successful case.

It was predicated on the "bad character" evidenced in the string of attacks and attempted attacks.

Ash-Smith was a self-confessed "animal" and told the jury in evidence that he used to wait until his parents went to bed before going on "midnight walks" where he attempted to provoke an attack.

Today's conviction marks the culmination of a long and painful battle for Claire's family. Her parents - crushed by the loss of their only chjld - did not survive to see her killer finally brought to justice.

At a press conference following her murder, they spoke of their devastation.

Mother Linda died in 2008, while her husband Cliff passed away in 2012. Both requested that their ashes not be joined at a cemetery with Claire's until their daughter's killer was convicted.

Claire's school friends vowed to continue the fight for justice, and just a year later Ash-Smith's family home was raided as part of a cold-case review into the murder.

In it, they found an edition of the local newspaper marking one year since the schoolgirl's death - described as a trophy of the brutal killing.

One piece of new evidence contributed to the prosecution's case against Ash-Smith - a "prison confession" made to a fellow inmate during his years behind bars.

The details he confided to Stefan Dubois were used by prosecutors after he was finally charged last year.

In the end it took the jury just three hours to come to their guilty verdict, and Ash-Smith now faces spending the rest of his life in jail.

Speaking today, the Crown Prosecution Service said the killer - who wrote in his diaries of his "psycho state of mind" - would have attacked many more women given the chance.