Teenager on trial for rape and murder (From Clacton and Frinton Gazette)

Teenager on trial for rape and murder

3:55pm Friday 5th February 2010

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A TEENAGER will go on trial in New Zealand today for the rape and murder of a former Brightlingsea schoolgirl.

Liberty Templeman emigrated to New Zealand with her family from the Essex town in 2005, in search of a better life.

The bubbly, friendly 15-year-old, known as Libby to friends and family, disappeared on the evening of Saturday November 1 2008, when she left friends to go and meet her boyfriend Connor Brough.

He reported her missing after she failed to meet him at the supermarket where he works.

The entire town of Kerikeri turned out as part of a huge hunt for the pretty teenager.

Despite their best efforts, the drama student’s body was found face down beside the Wairoa Stream in the town.

Libby had lived in Kerikeri since arriving in the country, only moving to Auckland with her family just weeks before her death.

She had returned to visit friends when the tragedy happened.

A then 14-year-old boy, who has been identified as a classmate of the murdered student - but not her boyfriend - was arrested five days after her death.

He was later charged with sexually assaulting and killing Libby.

A judge has imposed a ban on identifying the defendant, because of his age. He has been held in custody at a unit for juvenile defenders since his arrest.

Libby was a former pupil at the Colne Community School, Brightlingsea. In the days following her death there was an outpouring of grief from residents of the town and former classmates who remembered her.

Some of her aunts and both paternal and maternal grandmothers still live in north Essex.

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