Bernadette Walker: Man guilty of murdering teenage daughter

A man murdered his teenage “stepdaughter” after she told her mother he had sexually abused her for several years.

Bernadette Walker, 17, referred to Scott Walker, 51, as her father, although he was not her biological father.

She was last seen on 18 July last year, when Walker picked her up from his parents’ house in Peterborough, Cambs, and despite police searches, her body has still not been found.

Cambridge Crown Court heard that Bernadette told her mother, Sarah Walker, 38, just two days before she went missing that the woman’s ex-partner had been sexually abusing her.

Ms Walker was not married to the defendant but had changed her last name by deed poll.

She had not believed her daughter’s allegations and prosecutors said that Walker had murdered Bernadette to “prevent her pursuing her allegations of sexual abuse any further”.

He said that Bernadette ran away when he stopped his car but jurors rejected his account.

He also denied the sexual abuse.

Ms Walker reported Bernadette as missing to police in the early hours of 21 July.

Lisa Wilding QC, prosecuting, said that Walker had formed an “unholy alliance” with Bernadette’s mother to cover up the girl’s death, sending messages from Bernadette’s phone to give the impression she was still alive.

Ms Walker admitted two counts of perverting the course of justice by sending messages from Bernadette’s phone after she disappeared and by providing false information to the police relating to her disappearance.

However, she denied two counts of perverting the course of justice “knowing or believing” Bernadette to be dead and jurors are continuing to deliberate on these.

Walker told the court that Sarah had feared the involvement of social services over the allegations against him.

He was also found guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice.

Ms Wilding said that Walker’s phone, “which was usually in regular use”, was off between 11.23am and 12.54pm on 18 July and added: “The prosecution say that in that hour and a half he killed Bea.”

She said that when Walker’s phone reconnected to the network at 12.54pm the first call he made was to Sarah, which lasted for more than nine minutes.

She told jurors: “The only sensible conclusion that can be drawn from that telephone call is that Scott Walker told his wife that he had killed Bernadette and needed her help, immediately, to cover up Bea’s disappearance and death and to buy them both time to work out what should happen next.

“The story they concocted in that call, and which both relied on from that moment on even until now, was that Scott had stopped the car on the short drive home to confront Bea about her allegations, that Bea jumped out of the car when he pulled over and that she ran off.

“Then, that Scott tried and failed to run after her and so returned home without her.

“From that moment on, Scott and Sarah Walker – Bea’s own mother and father – were joined, the prosecution say, in an unholy alliance, designed and intended to mislead, to divert and to pervert the inevitable investigation into the disappearance and ultimately the death of Bea Walker.”

At the time of Bernadette’s disappearance, the Walkers were living at the same address but Sarah was in a relationship with another man.

Walker said he considered the possibility that Bernadette’s allegations and disappearance may have been a “plan” to get him “out of the house”.

Sarah Walker did not give evidence.

Sentencing has been set for 10 September.

Additional reporting by Press Association