Man found guilty of murdering daughter, 17, missing since last July

A man has been found guilty of murdering his 17-year-old daughter, who went missing last July and whose body has never been found.

Scott Walker was found guilty of the murder of Bernadette Walker by a jury at Cambridge crown court on Monday. Bernadette’s mother, Sarah Walker, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

The jury heard that Bernadette – who called Scott Walker “Dad” even though he was not her biological father – claimed to her mother two days before her disappearance that he had been sexually abusing her for several years.

Prosecutors said he killed Bernadette to “prevent her pursuing her allegations of sexual abuse any further”, and that her mother did not believe her accusations.

The prosecution said Scott Walker had formed an “unholy alliance” with Bernadette’s mother, who was his ex-partner, to cover up the girl’s death. Sarah Walker was found guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice, “knowing or believing” Bernadette to be dead.

She had admitted sending messages from her daughter’s phone after she disappeared and providing false information to the police relating to her disappearance.

The court heard that Bernadette was sent to stay with Scott Walker’s parents overnight the day after telling her mother about the abuse “while things calmed down a little”. He collected her from the house the following day, 18 July 2020, the day she was last seen alive. Sarah Walker reported Bernadette as missing to police in the early hours of 21 July.

Accusing the pair of collaborating to cover up the teenager’s death, the prosecutor, Lisa Wilding QC, said Sarah Walker had sent messages from Bernadette’s phone to give the impression she was still alive.

She said Scott Walker’s phone, “which was usually in regular use”, was off between 11.23am and 12.54pm on 18 July. “The prosecution say that in that hour and a half, he killed Bea,” she said.

Wilding said the first call Scott Walker made when his phone reconnected to the network was to Sarah Walker, and that they spoke for more than nine minutes.

She said the “only sensible conclusion that can be drawn” from that telephone call was that Scott Walker told Sarah Walker 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”.

“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.”

Scott Walker claimed Bernadette’s allegations of sexual abuse were untrue. He will be sentenced on 10 September.

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

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.