Man guilty of killing teenage girl who called him father after abuse claims

A 17-year-old girl murdered by her father recalled in her diary how her mother ‘called me a liar and threatened to kill me’ if she went to the police and accused him of sexual abuse, it emerged today.

The tragic diary entry by Bernadette Walker was revealed as her father Scott Walker, 51, was found guilty by a jury of the teenage student’s murder.

Prosecutor Lisa Wilding QC told Cambridge Crown Court that Scott Walker formed an ‘unholy alliance’ with Bernadette’s mother, his ex-partner Sarah Walker, 38, to cover up the girl’s death, sending messages from Bernadette’s phone to give the impression she was still alive.

Today police, who suspect Scott Walker hid her body after murdering her, released part of the teenager’s diary which included an entry made before she disappeared.

Bernadette wrote how her mother Sarah accused her of lying and told her she would ‘kill me’ if the teen went to police with the claims.

The un-dated entry seen by jurors reads: ‘Told my mum about my dad and the abuse. She called me a liar and threatened to kill me if I told the police.

‘She said that the other kids matter more. I love feeling unwanted. I feel nothing right now cause I always thought mum would deal with [sic] and it would all go away. But no, he’s still here telling me I made it up.

‘What kind of parent wouldn’t believe their daughter? But it’s fine, I’m going to pretend it’s okay till I leave home then I will block them out of my life. 

‘I’d rather say I’m an orphan than say I have abusive parents who couldn’t give a s**t about me or what happens to me. If I was brave enough I probably would have already left, or just killed myself.’  

Bernadette’s body has never been found but a six week trial heard that she vanished on July 18 last year shortly after making allegations of sexual abuse against her father.

Sarah had previously admitted perverting the course of justice by sending messages from Bernadette’s phone and providing false information to police with the intention to cover up sexual abuse allegations made by Bernadette against Scott. 

She was today also found guilty by majority verdicts of two counts of perverting the course of justice ‘knowing or believing’ Bernadette to be dead, after previously pleading not guilty to these. 

One count was of sending messages from Bernadette’s phone to give the impression that she was alive, and the other was of giving false information to police relating to her disappearance.  

It came as a chilling phone call was revealed in which Sarah Walker misled police that it was ‘not the first time she’d run away’ in an effort protect her killer stepfather.

Her phone call – made public by the police this afternoon – can be revealed for the first time today as he was found guilty of murdering Bernadette to stop her complaining of sexual abuse. 

Sarah can be heard telling the operator:  ‘I am just ringing to report my 17-year-old daughter missing. She ran away on Saturday lunchtime but I knew where she was until she stopped messaging. This is not the first time she done it.’

Bernadette Walker, 17, was last seen alive on July 18 last year when 51-year-old Scott Walker, who was not her biological father, collected her from his parents’ house in Peterborough, Cambridge Crown Court heard.

Prosecutors said that Scott Walker killed her to ‘prevent her pursuing her allegations of sexual abuse any further’.

Scott Walker said that Bernadette ran away from his car when he stopped the vehicle, but jurors rejected his account.

The prosecution said Bernadette told her mother, 38-year-old Sarah Walker, on July 16 that Scott Walker had sexually abused her ‘over a number of years’, but that Sarah Walker did not believe her daughter’s allegations. 

Scott Walker told jurors that Bernadette’s allegations of sexual abuse were ‘untrue’.

The prosecution said that Bernadette was sent to stay with Scott Walker’s parents overnight on July 17 ‘while things calmed down a little’, with Scott Walker collecting her on July 18, when she was last seen alive.

Sarah Walker reported Bernadette as missing to police in the early hours of July 21.

Lisa Wilding QC, prosecuting, said that Scott Walker formed an ‘unholy alliance’ with Bernadette’s mother, his ex-partner Sarah Walker, to cover up the girl’s death, sending messages from Bernadette’s phone to give the impression she was still alive.

Sarah Walker admitted two counts of perverting the course of justice by sending messages from Bernadette’s phone after she disappeared and by providing false information to the police relating to her disappearance.

Scott Walker told the court that Sarah Walker had feared the involvement of social services over the allegations against him.

Sarah Walker had denied the course of justice ‘knowing or believing’ Bernadette to be dead, and jurors are continuing to deliberate on these.

The judge gave them a majority direction on Monday.

Scott Walker was also found guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice.

Ms Wilding said that Scott Walker’s phone, ‘which was usually in regular use’, was off between 11.23am and 12.54pm on July 18.

‘The prosecution say that in that hour and a half he killed Bea,’ she said. 

Ms Wilding said that when Scott Walker’s phone reconnected to the network at 12.54pm the first call he made was to Sarah Walker, which lasted for more than nine minutes.

‘The only sensible conclusion that can be drawn from that telephone call is that Scott Walker told his wife that he had killed Bernadette and needed her help, immediately, to cover up Bea’s disappearance and death, and to buy them both time to work out what should happen next,’ said Ms Wilding.

‘The story they concocted in that call, and which both relied on from that moment on, even until now, was that Scott had stopped the car on the short drive home to confront Bea about her allegations, that Bea jumped out of the car when he pulled over and that she ran off.

‘Then, that Scott tried and failed to run after her and so returned home without her.

‘From that moment on, Scott and Sarah Walker – Bea’s own mother and father – were joined, the prosecution say, in an unholy alliance, designed and intended to mislead, to divert and to pervert the inevitable investigation into the disappearance and ultimately the death of Bea Walker.’

Sarah Walker was not married to Scott Walker but had changed her surname to Walker by deed poll.

At the time of Bernadette’s disappearance, Scott and Sarah Walker were living at the same address but Sarah Walker was in a relationship with another man.

Scott Walker said in evidence that he considered the possibility that Bernadette’s allegations and disappearance may have been a ‘plan’ to get him ‘out of the house’.

Sarah Walker did not give evidence.

A sentencing date has been set for September 10.