Lewis Haines was jailed for a minimum of 23 years and four months for murdering Lily Sullivan, whom he met in a nightclub in Pembroke, south-west Wales, last December. Haines, 31, and Miss Sullivan, 18, had kissed at the venue on December 16 and went together to a nearby alley where they became more intimate. Judge Paul Thomas QC said it was clear that after spending around an hour in the lane together, Haines had become “frustrated” and attacked Miss Sullivan for rejecting his sexual advances. The teenager was later found face down and topless in a nearby reservoir after Haines made her walk to the lake and forcibly removed her cream lace. After murdering Miss Sullivan, Haynes walked past his victim’s mother, Anna Sullivan, as she waited to pick up her daughter from a nearby garage. “The truth will haunt me for the rest of my life” In a statement, Mrs Sullivan described Haynes as “pure evil” and said he looked her “straight in the eye, knowing what she had done” to her “beautiful” daughter as he passed her. “The events of the night Lily died keep going through my mind and I wake up at night picturing Lily in the water, wondering if she knew what was happening, if she was scared,” she said. “I wish I had stopped Lily from going out that night. I imagine the man responsible for Lily’s death that I saw in the garage and wish I had confronted him. “Knowing I was so close to her, I wish I would have gotten out of my car and walked. “I will always wonder if I could have saved her. “These thoughts never leave me and I can’t stop thinking about it. I have to live with the fact that now I will never know what really happened to Lily that night. “I suspect the real truth will haunt me for the rest of my life.” As Haynes was led down to the cells, Miss Sullivan’s family and friends shouted “rot in hell” and “monster”. “His intention was to silence her” Father-of-one Haynes admitted murdering Miss Sullivan but denied sexual harassment, claiming his victim had threatened to accuse him of rape. At the time, Haines was going through family court proceedings to gain access to his child and had a girlfriend. “He choked Lily to prevent her from telling people that he had tried to get her to go further than she wanted,” Judge Thomas said. “His intention was to silence her. He didn’t want anyone to know what had happened in the lane.” Miss Sullivan’s social media featured a series of shocking posts about misogyny, sexual violence and the killing of women by men, including a photo of floral tributes for Sarah Everard with a sign reading: ‘Just go home’. Another post several weeks later listed 80 women who had been murdered by men since Miss Everard was murdered by Met police officer Wayne Couzens.
