The next day, a police liaison officer arrived at the house. Jennifer said: ‘I just looked at him and said, “It’s my daughter, isn’t it?” and he said, “I’m so sorry.” I immediately said, “I want to see her.” But then he added, “I have some other bad news. Her body was dismembered into nine parts – we found her in black bin bags.” He was very factual, but I was in hysterics, a complete mess.’
Forensic scientists were unable to tell whether Rochelle was sexually assaulted, but three deep scratches down McGrady’s arm proved she fought him as he tried to have his way with her before choking her to death. Police believe she died within an hour of being at McGrady’s flat and that she lay there dead overnight.
The following day, McGrady was caught on security cameras in a nearby hardware store buying hacksaw blades. Back at his flat, he used knowledge gained as a butcher’s assistant to cut her up into pieces, which he stuffed into five black bin-liners. He then loaded the bags into a Tesco trolley and transported them to a rubbish chute nearby, leaving a trail of blood along the way.
Two days after Rochelle went missing, McGrady’s girlfriend Margaret visited his flat, where she found him shaking and repeating the words,‘I have killed a man.’ She noticed there were bloodstains on the carpet, but she assumed both the blood and his ramblings were down to a drunken fight between him and any number of fellow violent alcoholics living on the estate.
When she returned the next day, she found that he had cut his wrists and other parts of his body. There was a bloodied steak knife on the arm of his chair and scattered around him were suicide notes he’d written, confessing to Rochelle’s murder. One was addressed to Margaret and another to the police. In the letter to the police, he claimed that he’d been ‘told what to do by a greater force.’
His wrists still dripping with blood, McGrady took Margaret to where he had dumped the body parts. After composing herself, the sickened woman phoned the police. Within minutes, four police officers and an ambulance were at the scene. An hour later, Milford Towers was cordoned off and according to witnesses at least 40 police were in attendance. Questioned after his arrest, McGrady admitted killing Rochelle, but claimed he could not remember any details about the girl’s abduction, murder or the subsequent dismemberment and disposal of her body.
On 16 May 2006 Belfast-born McGrady – who hails from a family of IRA killers – was jailed for the rest of his life at the Old Bailey. Judge Stephen Kramer told him: ‘You cruelly took the life of a young girl and you have left her family, and especially her mother, bereft. I am driven to the conclusion that you must have been motivated by sexual desires.
‘I am also satisfied that, particularly when you have been drinking, you are – and continue to be – a dangerous predator on women, especially young women. Just punishment requires me to pass a sentence which means you never have the opportunity to prey on young women again.’ As he was led to the cells, Rochelle’s mum screamed at him: ‘Rot in hell!’
John McGrady had a long history of violent sexual crimes against young women. In 1988 he was jailed for six years for raping two 19-year-olds at knifepoint in Greenwich, South-East London. He forced the pair to commit humiliating sex acts on each other before raping them in turn.
In 1993 he pulled a knife on a woman who he had followed off a bus. He bundled her over a wall and was ready to assault her when a police patrol car stopped and disturbed him. This time, he went back to jail for five years. He had also been acquitted of rape three times in 1984, telling juries that the women had consented. In one case the alleged victim said he had worn a balaclava and used a knife.
Outside court, Rochelle’s mum voiced her family’s outrage at the system’s failure to monitor such a dangerous man: ‘The system has let us down. We feel terrible anger and upset that a man with such predatory instincts was allowed to live with us.’
Rochelle’s murder led to huge criticism of the system of monitoring sex offenders in Britain. Despite his appalling history of attacks on young girls, McGrady was one of thousands of ex-convicts left off the Sex Offenders’ Register because their crimes took place before it was created and inclusion was feared to be in breach of their human rights.
But Detective Inspector Tim Grattan-Kane, head of the Specialist Crime Directorate unit that investigated the murder, believes McGrady was too despicable and devious to stop, even had he been monitored. He said: ‘McGrady has not been brought to our attention since his release in 1997, but whatever systems may have been in place, he is so evil I do not think anything could have prevented him doing what he did.
‘Since his last spell in prison, he has used different permutations of his family names to disguise his identity. He has worked as an odd-job man and as a butcher for a time, but latterly, heavy drinking marked his life and he did not stray far from his flat. He was so evil that no restriction, such as a curfew or tagging, would have stopped him. You would literally need a policeman at his side at all times to stop him.
‘Although he pleaded guilty, he has never told us what happened, especially how Rochelle came to go to his flat. It was clear that the motive was sexual, but at no time has he admitted why he did it. His mind went completely blank when he had to admit anything.’
This refusal to tell what happened is hard for Rochelle’s family to bear. ‘I’m never going to hear the proper story of how that beast killed my baby,’ says Jennifer Bennett. ‘I’ve been left in the dark. I want to know why he took her up there and I’m never going to know.’
In January 2007 McGrady’s lawyers appealed against his whole life sentence, claiming it was ‘manifestly excessive’. His barrister, Thomas Smith, asked Sir Igor Judge, sitting with Mr Justice Gray and Mr Justice Henriques at the Court of Appeal, to reduce his sentence and give him a chance of release before he dies.
Declining the appeal, Sir Igor said: ‘The sentencing judge was satisfied that the seriousness of what he did in murdering the victim was extremely high and must have been motivated by sexual desires. Particularly when in drink, the judge said he was, and would continue to be, a dangerous predator on women, especially young women.
‘The judge concluded that he must pass a sentence which would mean that he would never prey on women again. He concluded that he must impose a whole life sentence. That decision is criticised before us today by Mr Smith. It is argued that a whole life term, whilst it was an appropriate starting point, was only a starting point, and doesn’t represent an end point. He also submits that intent to kill was not proved, and that too great an emphasis was placed on the danger posed by this applicant and the protection of the public.
‘It is also argued that there was evidence of genuine remorse, sustained by the guilty plea, and we are also asked to bear in mind Mr Smith’s client’s age. We are extremely doubtful as to the basis of his remorse.
‘We are prepared to accept that he felt and feels sorry for himself, but we are not prepared to accept that he has no recollection of how this unfortunate young woman died. If he was truly sorry, he would have something to say to the parents and family of the victim, who have repeatedly expressed their profound disturbance at their lack of real knowledge and facts about the events which led to the death of this precious member of their family.
‘This was the murder of a child, a teenage girl, who was chosen by McGrady because she was a teenage girl, for his own sexual purposes. Whatever he may have intended when he first targeted and abducted her, there is no doubt that he must have known exactly what he was doing when he strangled her.
‘This was not the first time he had applied manual pressure to the throat of a young woman. Strangling involves serious force and as we know in this case, a struggle. At some stage he intended that this girl should die. After she was dead, her body was subjected to the gross indignity of dismemberment in a bid to escape detection.
‘This case fell, rarely, within the category where the starting point is a whole life order. We can see no reason whatsoever for interfering with the sentencing judge’s conclusion, with which we entirely agree. This application