'Sexual menace' Brendan Rowan-Davies guilty of murdering Gosport mum-of-three Kelly-Anne Case

Relatives of Kelly-Anne Case let out a ‘yes' in the public gallery and wept as the jury convicted sex menace Brendan Rowan-Davies, 29, after around three and a half hours of deliberations. He was convicted of murder and arson.

Tall and broad 6ft 3in Rowan-Davies, who shook his head when he was convicted, mutilated his 5ft 1in victim’s lower chest after killing her by repeatedly slicing her throat and severing her carotid artery and jugular vein.

Crime scene experts believe he was on the bed at the time of the killing, having tormented her by stabbing her right shoulder before she died.

During a 16-day trial jurors heard how she was found by firefighters with her wrists bound by cable ties, naked on the edge of her stripped bedding, which had been taken downstairs and set on fire.

Winchester Crown Court heard Ms Case, 27, suffered broken ribs that suggested her killer may have tried tried to resuscitate her when she died.

CCTV painstakingly collected by detectives revealed Rowan-Davies twice changed his clothes between going to Ms Case’s home with friend Will Vallender on July 30 and when he returned as a murderous intruder hours later.

So brazen was Rowan-Davies that he took a bus to and from her home, with in-bus footage showing him casually boarding and alighting with no outward emotion despite later saying he was ‘petrified’ after claiming he disturbed the true killer.

The defendant, who has learning disabilities and whose trial had to be paused around every 40 minutes for him to take a mental break, had been ‘rejected’ by Ms Case in the early hours of July 30 when he told her he ‘always fancied her’.

Giving evidence at Winchester Crown Court, he revealed how he had filmed Ms Case and Mr Vallender having sex on his mobile phone as he crept about the house before leaving with Mr Vallender at around 6.30am.

By 7.46am Rowan-Davies, having left Ms Case’s home with a bag full of her friend’s underwear, was caught on CCTV in Grange Close going back into Ms Case’s home in Grange Crescent, Gosport, before emerging at 8.23am.

More CCTV caught the moment he walked down a nearby cycle path where smouldering clothing was later recovered. He had thrown away clothes in communal bins in Trinity Close, Gosport.

Rowan-Davies was arrested at his brother’s home the next day in Buckingham Green, Buckland, having not contacted police despite Mr Vallender urging him to do so. Rowan-Davies, of Trinity Close, Gosport, told police he was going to ‘call them in a bit’.

When officers said it was about the death of Kelly-Anne Case he said: ‘I had an idea about that.’

But despite repeated interviews under caution he told them nothing. Last week he told jurors interrupted the mystery true killer, who pushed him over Ms Case’s body and threatened him leaving him terrified.

Jurors saw through his ‘web of deceit’ and Rowan-Davies, who is being held on remand in prison, now faces being sentenced at 2pm today.

Prosecutor William Mousley QC previously said the defendant’s learning disability had to be respected to make the trial fair. But he added: ‘But members of the jury, the time comes when respect and understanding must end, and incredulity and disgust take over, when the gloves come off and it’s necessary to reveal Brendan Rowan-Davies for what he really is: a conman, a liar, a sexual menace, an arsonist, a murderer.’

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