02/16/2025
A pa******le is launching a fresh bid to clear his name 30 years after one of Britain’s most shocking child murders.
Howard Hughes was jailed for the rest of his life for killing seven-year-old Sophie Hook. The 6ft 8in tall unemployed gardener snatched her from a tent, r***d and strangled her then threw her body into the sea. Now 59, he has hired a new legal team to try and win his freedom.
A source said: “Hughes has never accepted his guilt. He spends his time in maximum security HMP Full Sutton telling anyone who will listen that he didn’t do it. But it would take something spectacular to overturn his conviction.”
Family of Irish backpacker murdered in India 'finally get justice' after eight years
Mug shot of Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes was jailed for life for the murder ( Image: Daily Mirror)
Hughes has already tried three times for a review of his case – in 1998, 2004 and 2017. Each time the Criminal Case Review Commission “made a decision not to refer the conviction to the Court of Appeal because reviews found no real possibility of it being overturned”.
Hughes’ new lawyers have requested files from his 1996 trial to try and find evidence he was not responsible. Any new appeal would mean fresh agony for Sophie’s family. Her mother Julie has said: “Sophie was, and always will be, to us a vivacious, fun-loving, extremely popular, beautiful, intelligent child. No child could have received or given more love to us.”
Sophie from Great Budworth, Cheshire, was sleeping in a tent with other kids in her uncle’s back garden in Llandudno, north Wales, on July 30 1995 when she was snatched. Hughes’ trial heard the pervert and petty crook – nicknamed Mad Howard – had earlier been eavesdropping on them from behind a hedge.
The tent in the garden where Sophie Hook was camping when she was abducted
Sophie Hook was abducted from a tent in her uncle's garden ( Image: Press Association)
He spent the rest of the day leering at girls in Llandudno and tried to abduct a six-year-old who escaped into her granny’s arms. Two hours after the kids went to bed, Hughes pulled Sophie from her sleeping bag. Her body was found on Llandudno beach the next morning.
Hughes, from nearby Colwyn Bay, was well known to police having been accused of s*x attacks on kids before and was arrested within hours. He confessed to his father, saying: “I did it, dad, I must tell somebody. I have been s*xually frustrated since 1990.”
Julie and Chris parents of murdered child Sophie Hook at a police press conference
Julie and Chris parents of murdered child Sophie Hook at a police press conference ( Image: Press Association)
Don't Miss
His lawyers argued there was no forensic evidence but the jury heard the seawater would have been washed it away. As Hughes was jailed for life, Judge Richard Curtis told him: “You are a fiend. Your crimes are every parent’s worst nightmare. My recommendation is that you are never, never, ever released. Take him down.”
Hughes was told he will serve at least 50 years. His previous barrister, retired Patrick Harrington KC gets letters from the murderer, handwritten from his cell at Full Sutton near York. “They are always signed ‘from the innocent Howard Hughes’,” Mr Harrington said in 2021. He added: “Hughes was semi-literate at best when convicted. He’s been a model prisoner for the 25 years he’s been inside and he now writes in block capitals using quite a good vocabulary and near-perfect grammar.”
Hughes has launched a bid for £50,000 in compensation for alleged abuse at Bryn Estyn home children’s in Wrexham. He is not thought to have been successful.
Full story :
NEWSMeet the Cast of ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ Season 3 February 16, 2025 - by loeurmlarm - Leave a Comment Farmer Wants a Wife returns for its third season on FOX with a new host — Kimberly Williams-Paisley — and four new farmers: Matt Warren, Jay Woods, John Sansone and Colton Hendricks, who w...
