Louise Smith murder: Senior judges refuse bid to increase Shane Mays' 25-year term

Shane Mays, 30, was last year jailed for life with at least 25 years for murdering 16-year-old Louise Smith in Havant Thicket on May 8 last year.

Mays, called ‘pure evil’ by Louise’s mother, was convicted after prosecutors said he caused ‘catastrophic’ injuries to the teenager.

The aspiring veterinary nurse was found 13 days later, her body burned and defiled, following an 8,000-hour police search of the woods.

When Mrs Justice Juliet May jailed Mays in December, she ruled that she could not be sure the killing was sexually or sadistic in its motivation.

Today the Court of Appeal heard a bid by the solicitor general’s office to increase the sentence, claiming it was ‘unduly lenient’.

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

He said the ‘exceptional savagery’ of the killing and destroying of Louise’s body should also have increased the sentence. There should have been a 30-year starting point, he said.

However, senior judges ruled the 25-year term must remain in place unchanged, adding the trial judge could not be criticised.

Giving judgment today, 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.’

Both Louise’s parents, Bradley Smith and Rebbecca Cooper, watched the hearing remotely - as did Mays from prison.

Ms Cooper had written urging the attorney general’s office to ask judges to increase the term.

Louise was living with Mays and his wife Chazlynn Mays at Ringwood House in Somborne Drive, Leigh Park, after the teenager fell out with her mother.

Earlier in the hearing, Mr Jones argued Mays’ defiling of Louise’s body was sexual ‘by its very nature’.

He also added: ‘This was also a murder of a child, not just any child but for these purposes, a vulnerable child; a child who had suffered depression and anxiety.

‘A child who was self-harming, a child who was adrift from her mother and without a settled address, a child with considerable and special needs.’

He added: ‘It’s a combination of her vulnerability and his position of parental authority over her which in my submission propels this case as being one of particular seriousness.’

Mr Jones added: ‘This was a murder of quite exceptional savagery. Louise Smith’s facial skeleton has been all but destroyed, her facial bones were all smashed. Her jaw had been detached, teeth lost, dislodged.

‘This was a murder of quite exceptional brutality and one against a victim who was so defenceless and vulnerable.’

Mays admitted manslaughter on the first day of his trial, claiming he punched her in the face after losing his temper but left her alive. He denied murder.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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