Robyn Vinter North of England correspondent
@robynvinter
Wed 22 Nov 2023 08.06 EST
“I hate that I won’t see her get married, have children and deliver her babies, become ‘Nanny Julie’ or grow old together like we always joked about.”
She told the court how police officers woke her up in the early hours of Sunday 21 August last year to tell her her daughter had been killed. “Two police officers stood at my door, an image that will haunt me for ever … ‘She’s passed away,’ they said. My life might as well have ended there too. Those three little words had just turned my lights out for ever; time has since stood still.”
“‘How? Why? What’s happened? Are you sure it’s Ashley?’ All those questions running round my mind. Our lives had just been turned upside down in the blink of an eye. She can’t be, we only spoke a few hours ago and she was fine.
“‘There’s been an incident at Ashley’s home. She has been shot,’ they said. Shaking, I fell to the floor.”
Speaking directly to her daughter’s killers, she added: “People speak about Justice for Ashley. But in my eyes there will never be justice, the only justice is that this would never have happened. Although I can now rest knowing that you monsters are going to pay for what you have done to me and my family. And that you too have ruined your own lives and your family’s lives. I hope my words haunt you all for ever and you James Witham; I hope when you go to sleep at night you too see my baby girl’s face as I do every single night.”
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#United Kingdom