Teens who lured 49-year-old loner to seashore and killed him after he ‘flirted’ with schoolgirl locked up

Three teenagers who killed a 49-year-old loner and filmed it for social media after he made sexual advances to a schoolgirl have been locked up.

Two of the youths – a boy and a girl who cannot be named because of their ages – were convicted of manslaughter following a trial after Alexander Cashford was punched, kicked and beaten to death then left lying in a pool of his own blood.

A second, older boy also pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

The barbaric assault was filmed by the 16-year-old girl, who was initially approached by Mr Cashford in an amusement arcade in Leysdown-on-Sea in Essex, the , on August 8 last year.

The girl and her two friends, boys aged 14 and 15 at the time, but a year older now, saved Mr Cashford’s number in the older boy’s phone as ‘pedo’, then lured him to a remote spot and killed him.

They struck him with a bottle, kicked him about the body, and pelted him with rocks causing more than 30 external injuries.

The girl and the older boy each received a seven-year sentence, while the younger boy was handed a five-year sentence at the Old Bailey today. 

Sentencing the trio, judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said: ‘It was an appalling incident and a senseless loss of life.’

Mr Cashford claimed to be 30 and believed he was meeting with a 16-year-old named Sienna, having spent the previous 48 hours sending scores of texts to what he thought was her phone.

He told her she was pretty and asked if she liked champagne.

But the boys ambushed Mr Cashford minutes after he and the girl began walking along the promenade.

The older boy picked up an empty glass bottle and struck his victim on the head while the girl screamed her encouragement.

The older boy said he originally intended just to ‘hit’ Mr Cashford, because he felt it was ‘wrong’ for him ‘trying to get with a 16-year-old’.

Katie Blumgart KC said jurors might find Mr Cashford’s behaviour ‘distasteful’ but said: ‘This isn’t Lord Of The Flies’, a reference to the William Golding novel about young boys who descend into savagery.

Over the course of four weeks, jurors learned how Mr Cashford lived a relatively quiet life, spending much of his time in nearby Rainham where he lived with his parents, or feeding the ducks nearby.

He was unmarried and did not have many friends.

It perhaps explains why he was flattered by the attention of the girl in the arcade.

Footage suggested Mr Cashford spent less than a minute in the company of the girl on the fateful day they met.

Police are unable to pinpoint exactly who was responsible for sending the messages to him, which came from the older boy’s phone because the girl did not want to give her number to Mr Cashford.

Talk quickly turned to meeting up.

‘Sienna’ suggested meeting up late – the older boy told the court they wanted it to be ‘dark’ so fewer people were around to see them attack Mr Cashford.

But, unbeknownst to them, Mr Cashford had his own reason for wanting to schedule the rendezvous for the afternoon – he needed to be home in the evening as part of his licence conditions because he was on a tag after being convicted of stalking.

They eventually settled for 6.45pm on Sunday August 10 – almost exactly 48 hours after that chance encounter between Mr Cashford and the girl at the arcades.

The court heard the ‘plan’ was for the pair to walk along the seafront, away from the crowds, and for the two boys to ‘hit’ Mr Cashford, while the girl filmed everything on a mobile phone.

‘We were going to follow them (Mr Cashford and the girl) up to a point where there were no people,’ the older boy told the court.

‘Then we were going to go up and hit (him).’

The footage was sickening – so much so that Mr Cashford’s parents left the courtroom whenever it was played.

It showed the moment the older boy began attacking Mr Cashford, who was unaware he was being followed while walking with the girl.

Mr Cashford ran off, with the two boys giving chase, but then fell to the floor.

He got up and began running again, with the older boy still in persuit. Mr Cashford stumbled again when he got to rocky ground.

Witnesses said they saw the older boy throwing rocks or stones at Mr Cashford as he again lay prone on the ground.

Footage was captured by the girl, filmed on the older boy’s mobile phone, in which she was heard yelling: ‘f****** paedophile, I’m f****** 16’ and ‘get him’.

The group then left Mr Cashford face down and casually walked back into the town where they got drinks after sharing footage online.

Forensic pathologist Dr Anna Biddlestone, who carried out the post-mortem examination, found more than 30 external injuries on Mr Cashford’s body and concluded that chest injuries were the most likely cause of his death. 

The trio were arrested within the hour after a quick-thinking eye witness secretly tailed the group and helped direct police to their location.

Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kimber from Kent Police described the ‘macabre’ way in which the children filmed the incident and then uploaded it to social media almost instantly.

He told the Daily Mail: ‘Whilst the nature of the assault itself is quite alarming, the more alarming feature is the way that such young people have gone about doing this to someone of 49 years of age.

‘For some people at a young age, you’re like: Why are you using social media as a platform to promote this kind of stuff?

‘It’s quite alarming, really, for people at that age to do that.’

The court heard the older boy expressed surprise that he was being arrested on suspicion of murder, telling officers: ‘I’m a big guy. If I wanted to kill him, I would have done.’

The boy told jurors: ‘I was surprised. The way I saw it, I didn’t do enough damage.’

The younger boy said he wasn’t aware of the plan to attack, but went along for the safety of the girl.

‘I remember seeing Mr Cashford giving her a hug,’ he told jurors. ‘I thought it was a bit weird.

‘He was clearly a lot older. I didn’t trust him. I was worried that something might happen to her.’

The youngster, an aspiring rugby player, said he started to chase Mr Cashford to ‘stop him getting away’.

‘I didn’t want him to think he could get away with meeting up with younger girls,’ the boy told the court.

The girl declined to give evidence, but told police she ‘just wanted to expose him, not harm him’.

Much of the tragedy was down to chance.

Mr Cashford met his killer by accident – they did not belong to a so-called ‘paedo hunter’ vigilante group, and were adamant they were not looking for a predator the day they bumped into the 49-year-old in the amusement arcade.

Indeed, while the younger boy and the girl were related, neither of them had met the older boy before all three of them went to spend the summer at holiday camps next to each other.

The court heard Mr Cashford showered the girl with compliments over text, saying ‘I would really like to kiss you’.

Mr Kimber said there was ‘nothing illegal about his actions’.

He said: ‘Whatever people’s views are, he certainly didn’t act illegally.

‘We deal with the incident based on the evidence and the legal standing. Really, it’s not a moral judgment, it’s an evidential judgment.’