Who is Scott Walker? Man kills daughter, 17, after she accuses him of sex abuse
A teenager from Cambridgeshire, the UK, reportedly went missing last year after accusing her father of sexual abuse. It was since discovered that the Peterborough Camps teen, identified as Bernadette Walker, 17, was actually murdered by her father, who then hacked her social media along with the teen's mother and pretended to be her to send text messages to friends and family. The ongoing trial against the parents is now hearing the shocking details of Bernadette's disappearance which the father had initially alleged happened after she ran out of his car.
According to prosecutor Lisa Wilding QC, after murdering his daughter, the father identified as Scott Walker, conspired with the girl's mother Sarah Walker, as the "wicked" parents laid "a false trail" pretending their child was still alive. News of this crime resurfaces after two harrowing missing person's cases left the UK rattled earlier this year. First, it was Sarah Everard, the woman who went missing while walking back home from her friend's place right after she got off a 15-minute phone call with her boyfriend. In the aftermath, a MET cop was arrested for her abduction and subsequent murder. Another woman Sarm Heslop went missing from her boyfriend's yacht, who waited for 10 hours before reporting. While Everard's body was eventually discovered, that's sadly not the case with Bernadette.
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Who is Scott Walker?
Identified as the 51-year-old dad, Scott allegedly killed his own daughter in July 2020 after she accused him of assaulting her in the games room. Bernadette, who was fondly called Bea by loved ones, also alleged that Scott was spying on her with hidden cameras, Wilding told Cambridge Crown Court. Bea had made the allegations to her mother Sarah, confiding that Scott had allegedly been abusing her "over a number of years".
Sarah had allegedly refused to believe her daughter and sent her to spend the night at her grandparents' home “whilst things calmed down a little". The parents claimed that Scott went to collect Bea from the grandparents' house, but on the ride back home she ran out of the car while discussing the accusations. Prosecutor Wilding told the court that this was a concocted story.
The murder of 'Bea' Walker
Almost a year since her disappearance and extensive searches across two counties later, Bea's body continues to be missing. Her parents have been charged with her murder, facing two counts each of perverting the course of justice. Scott has since denied that Bea was murdered on or after July 18, the day she went missing. He has also denied the four counts of perverting the course of justice, with Sarah denying two counts of perverting the course of justice. Their ongoing trial is expected to last five weeks, The Sun reported.
Wilding told the jury, “In the hours and days Scott and Sarah Walker hacked into Bea’s social media accounts, sent false messages from her telephone which was still in their possession, pretending to be from her to friends and family and which were designed to lay a false trail in order to explain their subsequent failure to report her missing to the police," adding: “They lied to everyone around them, including Bea’s siblings, about her disappearance and were unflinching in their pursuit of their devious, wicked plan."
She continued: “In those hours and days in which they hid her disappearance from everyone and deliberately set a false trail of where and when Bea had gone, they achieved their goal. They diverted the investigation into her disappearance and death for sufficiently long and sufficiently well, that any hope of finding Bea’s body disappeared with her. All parental love and responsibility was gone, if ever it existed. They had no interest in seeing Bea safely returned to her family, nor did they offer any help to anyone to find her. Instead, selfishly and ruthlessly, they maintained their lying accounts which were designed only to protect themselves.”
Who was Bernadette 'Bea' Walker?
Bea, who would be aged 18 now, was a photography student from Peterborough Cambs. She was known as a goth for dyeing her hair all sorts of different colors. On July 21, her parents, who have never been legally married, reported Bea missing three days after she had been dropped off at her grandparents' home. The Peterborough Regional College student was supposed to return home the same day she had been sent to her grandparents, on July 18.
According to Wilding, "Walker collected Bernadette from his parents’ home and set off to drive her back to the family home. When her grandparents said goodbye to her that morning, it was the last time that they, or anyone other than Scott Walker, saw her alive.” Citing Walker's phone records that show the device had been switched off for an hour and a half, Wilding added: “How he did so will never be known for her body has never been found. She has, literally, never been seen again."
The cover-up
Alleging that Scott then phoned his wife, Wilding continued: “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 that he 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." She further added: "Bea’s own mother and father were joined in an unholy alliance, designed and intended to mislead, divert and pervert the inevitable investigation into the disappearance and death of Bea Walker. She has never been found. Since the day she disappeared she has not used nor sought to access her telephone or social media accounts, she had access to no money or banking and has not been seen at any hospital or surgery. No one who knew her or loved her — her friends and family — has heard from her since that day."
Wilding also told the court that Bea is "presumed dead and it's likely that her body was disposed of, probably in the countryside in the hours that followed her killing". "The prosecution alleged that Scott killed Bea to prevent her from pursuing her allegations of sexual abuse. He then enlisted the help of his wife to cover his tracks and provide them both with time to formulate the next part of their plan. To this day, neither of them accepts that Bea is dead. The prosecution must therefore prove to you not only that she is, but also that she died at the hands of her father who then recruited her mother to assist him in concealing her death and his involvement in it.”