How a Facebook Password Trapped A Killer

The Lucy McHugh Murder 

13-Year-old Lucy McHugh was stabbed 27 times and dumped in woodlands at Southampton Sports Centre in Hampshire, England

An evil killer, 25-year-old Stephen Nicholson killed Lucy McHugh on July 25th, 2018 in order to stop her from exposing the dreadful abuse that she had suffered at his hands. At his trial at Winchester Crown Court, evil Nicholson was found guilty of three counts of rape against his 13-year-old victim.

The trial judge Mrs. Justice May said that Lucy had "Unknown promise that was cruelly obliterated" by Nicholson, She referred to him as "Totally depraved".

The arrest of the predator sparked a massive search for evidence, which included some 11,000 hours of CCTV footage being meticulously examined by expert officers, but it was actually a Facebook password that proved to be the ultimate piece of evidence and was ultimately Nicholson's undoing.

The 25-year-old had been the police's prime suspect from the outset of the investigation into Lucy McHugh's murder. He had lodged at her home on regular occasions and was held on suspicion of murder from very soon after his teenage victim was found dead. 

During an early interview, Nicholson told police that on the night before her murder Lucy had sent him a message, through Facebook's messenger service telling him that she was pregnant. This information of course aroused the detective's suspicions even further, as Stephen Nicholson was 11 years older than Lucy. Obviously, if the pair had been having sex then this was a crime in itself, for which Nicholson would be held responsible. Police began to dig deeper and examine messages exchanged between the two more thoroughly. 

Lucy McHugh - A life destroyed by vile abuse

The investigation into Stephen Nicholson's Facebook activity, specifically his messages presented some difficulty when the Police realised that the password had been changed prior to his arrest, which made gaining access an issue. Nicholson refused to give his password up, of course, he knew that this would hold back the investigation and the clock was running!!

He claimed that he had initially withheld the information in order to avoid reprisals from his contacts in the criminal fraternity, particularly drug dealers. Nicholson was himself a cannabis dealer and therefore said that he felt if the police examined his messages he risked being harmed by his fellow criminals.

Later during trial, the judge called this excuse as "wholly inadequate". Of course, the actual reason for withholding such vital information was that Nicholson knew without it the police were going to struggle to have no direct evidence strong enough to link him to 13-year-old Lucy's murder. 

The police, in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, realised that they had no choice but to place Stephen Nicholson on Bail pending further investigation until they could access his social media account on Facebook. They contacted the social media giant in the United States to request access to the account but, that was a very difficult and daunting route with Facebook only being willing to give the British police access if a US court ordered it to do so. 

The only way forward was for detectives to use the special powers of Section 53 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), often used during terrorism investigations involved in matters of National Security. The surveillance law can however be used to cover all kinds of serious criminal cases. 

Here is the link to the relevant legislation, if anyone wants to read further: RIPA

The police and CPS were very tactical in their procedures and decided to bail Nicholson but charge him with the offence of failing to hand over his Facebook password in contravention of RIPA, he subsequently appeared in court and was sentenced to 14 months imprisonment. The jail term gave police a great deal more time to work on the main target case of the murder of Lucy McHugh, whilst knowing that Nicholson could not "vanish into the night" so to speak. He also could not intimidate with witnesses, tamper with evidence or otherwise pose a risk to the police's case.

Evil Stephen Nicholson has been serving prison sentences since he was 14 years old

During Nicholson's early time in custody, the police still had no direct evidence to link the place where Lucy's body was found to him. There was no DNA found at the scene of the crime and the murder weapon had not been found. Police really needed their evidence from social media and they clung to the hope that eventually Facebook would give them the access that they so desperately needed.

The police enlisted the help of a cloud data analyst and began to trace information that would have been sent by companies like Google from their servers and signal masts to Nicholson's mobile telephone, During the intricate investigation, the analyst noticed a slight deviation in Nicholson's most direct route home on the day that Lucy was murdered. 

The deviation was identified as taking him through woodland in Southampton known whilst following Tanner's brook. That is a stream that weaves its way through the western half of the city. Detective Superintendent Paul Barton said "it was just a slight deviation on his telephone, you might say it jumped one mast" he went on to say that "it was a great piece of work by the analyst who discovered it".

By now four weeks had passed since the discovery of Lucy McHugh's body but on day one of a fingertip search which had been launched as a result of the telephone evidence, the breakthrough came. 

As a result of one of the biggest fingertip searches ever carried out by the constabulary which involved 190 officers from 12 other police forces they found a bag containing a bloodstained blue hoodie and other items that were described by the prosecution as Nicholson's "Murder kit". The hoodie was covered in Lucy's blood and held clearly identifiable DNA belonging to Stephen Nicholson. 

Some of the clothing had been partially burnt before being dumped close to the brook in an attempt to destroy evidence when Nicholson got changed before completing his escape journey from the murder scene. Up until the discovery of the clothing, the police had not had any real evidence to link Nicholson to the murder scene, but now things were changing, they had some concrete evidence. 

Lucy's jacket and Nicholson's hoodie were forensically examined and fibers from the blue hoodie were found on the jacket, this confirmed that there had been direct contact between the jacket and the hoodie. Combined with that evidence police were also able to confirm that just two of the hoodies in question had been sold in Southampton, one had been given as a present to a friend of Nicholson.

The DNA evidence was the final straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, Nicholson was done for. The new evidence combined with the fact that Nicholson had been jailed for failing to give up his Facebook password had bought the police the vital time that they needed. Chances are that if he had not been jailed Stephen Nicholson would have gone to the brook, retrieved the bag of evidence, and destroyed it. 

The Crown Prosecution Service was eventually granted access to Nicholson's Facebook messages on the first day of his trial for Lucy McHugh's murder, sadly the messages had all been deleted before the killer was arrested. 

During his trial the court heard that Nicholson had first raped Lucy in May 2017 whilst he had been staying at her family home, he had gone to do it twice more during the following week. Teachers at Lucy's school raised concerns with Social Services after hearing things being said by Lucy but on both occasions, officers from Southampton Social Services investigated but found no cause for concern so Nicholson was able to continue grooming and sexually abusing Lucy after he had discovered her teenage 'crush' on him. 

Maybe if Social Services had done their job properly then an innocent 13 year old would not have been sexually abused by a depraved monster and later been so viciously murdered by him. I hear many cases where various social workers abuse their powers and remove children from homes where they are perfectly safe, yet they deem vulnerable children such as Lucy to be safe, how is that possible?

The trial judge, Mrs. Justice May said in her summing up that Stephen Nicholson knew that Lucy was "vulnerable and easy prey to someone satisfying his own appetites". She said that "Nicholson had exploited Lucy's 'crush' on him after he had moved into the family house". she referred to him as "utterly selfish and depraved".

Nicholson had realised later that Lucy, in fact, posed a big risk to him as she was very likely to out him as a paedophile so he killed her in order this comfortable life would not be disrupted. The monster was also convicted of sexual activity with another 14-year-old girl in 2012. He was jailed for life with an order that he must spend at least 33 years in custody before he can apply for parole.

My reason for posting this case was not justice to share the true crime story with you but to highlight the major failings by local authorities and social services when it comes to protecting vulnerable people, particularly children whilst abusing their powers where they shouldn't. 

I was today given a story of a school abusing its powers by allowing things to be done to children without parental consent and thus breaking human rights laws, but they deem that to be acceptable. That is for another day and another blog. I will leave it there for this one and I'll see you soon.

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