Lewis Haines, an oil refinery worker, forcibly removed Lily Sullivan’s cover and strangled her before pushing her into the water in Pembroke, south-west Wales, hours after meeting her in a nightclub. Jailing him for life at Swansea Crown Court, Judge Paul Thomas QC said Haynes would be in his 50s before being considered for parole. As he was sentenced one person in the public gallery shouted “monster” and said the prison sentence was not long enough. Thomas told him: “You brutally murdered Lily Sullivan because you wanted sex. She was arranging to meet her mother. You got frustrated and tried to force her to move on. He told you he would complain about what you did. “To stop her from doing it, you strangled her face to face. She must have been terrified, an 18-year-old girl alone in the dark with a powerful man, at your mercy and you showed her absolutely nothing, you were only concerned with your own self-preservation.” The teenager’s mother, Anna Sullivan, said she wished she could turn back time and stop her going out that night. “I wish I could protect her from the harm she encountered,” he said. In a personal victim impact statement, Anna Sullivan said he was her only child, born after 14 miscarriages. Sullivan grew up to be a “beautiful girl inside and out” who always saw the best in people. She was a talented artist who loved house music and had just started dating friends and was enjoying college. “She was robbed of her future,” her mother said. She said the events of the night played over and over in her mind. “I wake up at night picturing Lily in the water and wondering if she knew what was happening and if she was scared. It’s like being tortured thinking that just one decision could have changed overnight.” Anna Sullivan was in her car waiting to pick up her daughter when Haynes drove by. “He looked me straight in the eye knowing what he had done,” she said. She was haunted by the idea that she could have gone out and found the teenager. “Maybe I could have saved my girl. He was trying to get back to me. He needed me, he had a problem.” Sullivan’s mother said she suffered panic attacks and no longer feared dying because it would mean she could be with her daughter. She said her father, who adored Sullivan, had dementia and constantly had to explain to him why his granddaughter wasn’t there, which was “like causing a new cut every day”. Haynes admitted killing Sullivan but denied it was a sexually motivated attack. The judge found that “sexual conduct” was involved. The pair first met at Out nightclub in Pembroke on the night of December 16 last year. In the early hours of the next morning they left the club and Haynes shepherded Sullivan down a secluded lane leading to the mill. A friend of Sullivan’s yelled at Haynes, “What are you doing? You have a girlfriend… and she’s only 18.” Anna Sullivan was talking to her daughter on the phone when the attack began and the line went dead. About that time someone living nearby heard a woman screaming. Anna Sullivan tried to call 30 times, but there was no answer. Grainy CCTV footage from the alley showed Sullivan’s phone flashing repeatedly as her mother tried to contact her.
