A MANIPULATIVE and violent man who preyed on a vulnerable teenager before killing her in a fit of rage has finally been brought to justice.
Keith Hall kept his secret for 20 years before finally owning up to what he did when he started to lose control of the vulnerable young woman and gave her a ‘beating which went too far’.
The 62-year-old forced Rachel Wilson into a life of prostitution after getting her addicted to crack cocaine, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Today, the 19-year-old's family have been able to take their first step towards full closure after he was jailed for 18 years and six months after admitting the manslaughter of the teenager.
A number of witnesses told police how Hall regularly attacked Rachel if she didn’t earn enough money working the streets and by the end she was ‘a bag of bones’.
The court heard how she was often covered in bruises and finger marks around her throat.
Despite being more than 20 years her senior, Hall had dragged the teenager into a life of addiction and prostitution to fund their drug habit.
At the time of her disappearance on May 31, 2002, Rachel was in a longstanding relationship with Hall, who was older than the victim’s own mother.
The court heard how Hall also got one of his children to lie on his behalf and give police investigating Rachel’s disappearance false information.
Jonathan Sandiford QC, prosecuting, said the precise cause of Rachel’s death was never ascertained as her skeletal remains, recovered from a drainage ditch in 2012 on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, revealed very little forensic evidence.
Following his arrest in 2014, Hall managed to persuade a friend to change his story after telling police that the defendant had told him he had killed Rachel.
Police installed a listening devious in his home and recorded him asking one of his children ‘how do you get away with murder?’.
Hall, of Lambton Road, Grove Hill, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, living off immoral earnings and perverting the course of justice, in May this year almost 20 years after he killed her.
Mark McHallam George QC, in mitigation, said his client and his victim were in the ‘grip of addiction’ at the time of Rachel’s death.
He added ‘there was no evidence to suggest the level of violence was out of kilter with the violence he had inflicted on her before’.
Judge Paul Watson QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, sentenced Hall to 18 years and six months for the attack on the vulnerable teenager.
He said the overwhelming evidence is that if Rachel didn’t earn enough money by working as a prostitute Hall would regularly beat her and leave her covered in bruises.
He said: "In thetwo years before she was killed, between the ages of 17 and 19, you exploited her work as a sex worker in order to fund your own use oc cocaine and heroin to maintain your lifestyle.
"The overwhelming evidence is that if Rachel didn't earn enough money for your needs you would be violent to her - beating and bruising her.
"On May 31, 2002, one such beating went too far resulting in you unlawfully killing her."
Judge Watson told Hall that he had made the lives of Rachel and her family a misery for 20 years.
He added: “You have never told anyone, even now how you killed her.”
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