A man who raped and murdered Ms Julie Hamill (28), an MP's niece, then dumped her body on a beach, has been jailed for life at Antrim Crown Court.
The court was told farm labourer Alastair Clifford Leighton (34) took advantage of Ms Hamill's "temporary vulnerability" to rape and sexually abuse her in his car early on February 3rd. Jailing Leighton, of Drumadragh Road, Coleraine, for life, Lord Justice McCollum said he had pleaded guilty to a "series of heinous crimes".
The body of Ms Hamill, a niece of SDLP South Down MP and MLA Mr Eddie McGrady, was found by a jogger on Portstewart Strand, Co Derry, shortly after she was seen being helped by Mr Leighton out of a nightclub in nearby Portrush.
Leighton later told police he was "very sorry for the little girl. I don't know what came over me - it must have been the drink in me".
The court heard that Ms Hamill, an adult education adviser, had become separated from a girlfriend while out drinking in the nightclub.
Appearing drunk, or unconscious, Ms Hamill was helped out of the club by Leighton, who put her into the back of his car where he sexually assaulted and raped her.
He then left her in his car while he stopped off for a hamburger and chips before driving her to Portstewart Strand where he kicked and then strangled her at the water's edge.
Mr Gordon Kerr QC, prosecuting, said Leighton was arrested within a week of the murder, after being identified from a security video showing him helping her from the club. Initially, he claimed he had only been giving her a lift home, but had dropped her off at a filling station after she said she wanted to be sick.
But Mr Kerr said that by the eighth interview, after being told that DNA and other forensic tests might link him to the murder, Leighton confessed to raping and sexually abusing her, although he maintained he never strangled her but "stabbed her in the throat with something".
Mr Kerr said that although there were no traces of a daterape drug in her system, there was evidence of some form of sedative.
Mr Anthony Cinnamond QC, defending, said the best points of mitigation in Leighton's defence were his confession to police and his guilty pleas to the court and the remorse he had expressed.
Leighton, who was put on the RUC's sex offenders' register for life, was also jailed for nine years for abduction and rape.
Lord Justice McCollum said he was making no recommendation for a minimum term.