Louise Smith family 'disgusted' as judges reject bid to increase Shane Mays' jail term

Senior judges at the Court of Appeal ruled Shane Mays’ life sentence with a 25-year minimum term for murdering the 16-year-old vulnerable girl must remain the same.

The solicitor general Michael Ellis QC had referred the case as unduly lenient, arguing a 30-year term should have been considered for the murder on May 8 at Havant Thicket.

Mays, 30, lured Louise to the woods before beating her to death with his fists, or a branch, and then defiled her before burning her body.

Mum Rebbecca Cooper, who watched the hearing remotely as did dad Bradley Smith, told The News she was ‘heartbroken enough’ and added: ‘I'm disgusted.’

Mays was also watching proceedings from prison.

Louise’s aunt 33-year-old Hannah Welstead, Mr Smith’s sister, said: ‘We as family, who listened in via video link, are so disgusted and heartbroken once again knowing he didn’t get longer then 25 years.’

Ms Welstead saw she saw Mays ‘smirk’ on the videolink as the judgment was passed, just as he did at sentencing in December.

The family hoped Mays would receive 30 years, and Ms Welstead said the Crown Prosecution Service had wanted to see the sentence changed.

‘It just brings it all back – it’s just horrendous. We’re just reliving it again,’ said Ms Welstead who listened to the hearing, during which the facts of Louise’s death were repeated.

Relatives were in ‘absolute pieces’ following the hearing.

Ms Welstead said: ‘This pain is never going to go but the feeling of him getting longer, and we really felt he was going to, and then didn’t – it just feels such a waste of time.

‘Watching him he's just not remorseful, he was just sitting there looking like he was waiting for a doctor’s appointment.

‘When they said it was only going to be staying at 25 years his face, it was just a smirk.

‘We wanted him to have 30 years just to bring a little bit of closure. We’re just in complete shock.’

Louise was loved by everyone she met, Ms Welstead said, with a bubbly personality, dirty laugh and ‘wicked sense of humour’.

At the hearing William Jones, for the solicitor general, argued the trial judge should have found Mays was engaged in ‘sexual conduct’ in defiling Louise’s body.

The trial judge Mrs Justice Juliet May said she could not be sure the defiling of Louise’s body with a stick was sexual conduct.

Her decision to impose a 25-year term could not be criticised, ruled three senior judges led by Lord Justice Davis.

Louise was living with Mays and his wife Chazlynn Mays, the teenager’s aunt, after the teenager fell out with her mother, when he lured her to Havant Thicket. In the days beforehand she told friends living there was ‘vile’.

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Mays, who has an IQ of 63, visited his mother after carrying out the attack with ‘exceptional savagery’ and then bought frozen pizzas from Iceland.

For days he lied and tried to throw police off the trail by alluding to blaming Louise’s innocent boyfriend Bradley Kercher.

Even after admitting manslaughter he denied responsibility for Louise’s death while giving evidence.

Yesterday retired Hampshire detective chief superintendent Paul Barton tweeted: ‘It was an horrendous crime against a child. It should have been 30 (years plus). No remorse shown.’

Mays denied the murder but was convicted at a trial at Winchester Crown Court.

When he was jailed Louise’s mother branded him a ‘monster’ and ‘pure evil’.

At the Court of Appeal hearing on Friday, Lord Justice Davis said: ‘In this particular case what was done to Louise was horrific, it was grotesque.’

But he added: ‘In our view the judge was perfectly entitled to end up at a figure of 25 years as she did.’

The judge said: ‘We fully understand the anguish this would have caused Louise’s family.’

He added: ‘As we see it, the judge conscientiously addressed her task and reached a conclusion which this court is in no position to say is unduly lenient.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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