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Father killed daughter then posted on Bebo to pretend she was alive
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent4 Jan 2010
A father murdered his teenage daughter and then posted messages on her Bebo site to pretend she was still alive.
Tony Couchman, 47, used Victoria Couchman's name and password then copied her characteristic misspellings in an attempt to fool her friends.
But on the eve of his murder trial, due to start today, Couchman killed himself in his cell at Lewes prison.
The skull of 19-year-old Victoria was discovered by children in woods in October 2008. Police soon found the rest of the remains of the single mother-of-one. She had vanished the previous May. Couchman slashed his wrists on Saturday morning and was pronounced dead soon after being found by prison officers.
Police believe he killed Victoria in a fit of anger at the loss of his son Dean in a car accident in 2005.
Victoria, who lived with her father in St Leonards, East Sussex, had been a passenger in the car, and he repeatedly argued with her over who was responsible for the 17-year-old's death.
Couchman hid Victoria's body in Redgeland Wood, in the Queensway area of St Leonards, but postings on her Bebo profile continued. They made Victoria appear cruel and vicious over the memory of the car crash victim.
In one exchange the person posing as Victoria demanded that one of Dean's friends remove a photo album dedicated to him from the web, saying: "Can you take all this stuff off about Dean. I don't want him on your page, he my bro not yours. RIP DEAN!!!"
The hacker's postings used Victoria's "phone text"-style spellings. One stated: "Listen, I ain't ya m8 anymore! Your a S*@T!! And you better take that s**t off about RIP Dean, he never like you, he not your bro he mine. Get a life and tell all da other freaks to not contact me coz I don't wanna know them!!!!!" When a friend tried to contact Vicky via the site, the reply was: "G, I bin waitin ages 4u 2cum on lol. Hw rya? xx"
But when she was alive Victoria's attitude was very different. On the site she described Dean as the person she missed most and urged people to "live life like it's your last day". She told how she loved comedy and romance films, clubbing and music, but disliked spiders. She wrote: "Hiya, im Vicky, im 18 nd av a lil girl. I liv in hastings. I av brown hair but im always diein it. I love to go out clubbin!!! Luv yuhoo."
One message on her profile read: "Hii vicky hun wt * bin up to. Aint sin or spoke to * in ages."
At a hearing at Lewes Crown Court before his death, Couchman, who had never reported his daughter missing to the police, had denied murder and perverting the course of justice.
Neighbours described Victoria as a "dedicated mum who spent hours playing with her daughter". One neighbour said Couchman was a "really nice guy" who would help with their garden.
A Prison Service spokesman said: "Tony Couchman was found unconscious in his cell at 11.30am on Saturday. Paramedics attended, but Mr Couchman was pronounced dead. The cause of death is yet to be determined. The prisons and probation ombudsman will conduct an investigation."
Reader views (8)
i like the bit about "phone text" style, this is also how many youngsters speak dat=that dis= this dem= them,etc etc. And there i was thinking Labour had poured millions into education or was i dreaming dat.
- Leonard Lillywhites, Tottenham., 04/01/2010 17:18
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"Killing 11 million innocent people"
6 million actually Roz but nevertheless I share your sentiments.
- Steve, Brentford, 04/01/2010 16:38
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NO he did not "kill daughter then posted on Bebo to pretend she was alive"
Porky just said he did then fed the line to the media to ease a conviction. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence and anyway he's dead now so we'll never know.
- Steve, Brentford, 04/01/2010 16:29
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@A Brown.
You are spot on there. Your observations about the behaviour of warders is a well known fact among prisoners.
Go online and read some testimonies from former prisoners. Forget that they are criminals, just read with an open mind.
Shocking, doesn't even come close.
- Whocares?, London, 04/01/2010 15:19
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A Brown,I don't understand your argument,are you upset because the man's dead (if he could be called so)or because he didn't sreve his sentence?
- Lindona, italy, 04/01/2010 14:59
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. . . ?! Killing 11 million innocent people - including 1.5 million children - is like a murderer committing suicide in jail? A Brown, I think you demean the victims of the holocaust and trivialise the crime of genocide.
- Roz, France, 04/01/2010 14:41
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A Brown seems to have spent some time at her majesty's pleasure. Having been close friends with members of the ICRC (International Red Cross) who undertake prison visits in foreign countries I can claim that UK prisons are a walk in the park. Hardly a tragedy that this monster killed himself...
- Dannyp, Egham, 04/01/2010 13:35
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British prisons are the most sick and twisted evil establishments in the Western world
Violence is actively encouraged by screws, where screw do dealing,..& who are little more than failed./or has-been ex military personnel,..and failed wannabe policemen ,..most not even have NVQ 1 or 2 qualifications in bread-baking let alone standing on nazi guaurd-duty over prisoners
the very idea that prisoners somehow mysteriously in great numbers take their life,..and are suddenly found dead in their cell must surely rank with the atrocities carried out by the Nazi's against the Jews
- A Brown, UK, 04/01/2010 12:54
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