Liam Cain strangled Ormskirk hairdresser Courtney Boorne to death at the couple's flat on December 23 last year. The 19-year-old was unanimously found guilty at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday after one hour and nine minutes of deliberations.
Ms Boorne's family - some of whom were wearing t-shirts emblazoned with a picture of Courtney and the message "justice for Courtney Boorne, forever 20" - sat tearfully in the public gallery. “It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to have to impose what is a very severe sentence on someone as young as you. The fact I must do so flows from the gravity of the offence you have committed."Your victim has none. The years that she had stretching ahead of her and all that they might have brought are forever gone."
"Courtney Boorne was heard to shout 'please'. She was crying and she was shouting, 'he has all the doors locked and he won't let me out'." Officers then attended the top floor property "very quickly" and had to force entry upon their arrival shortly before 5pm. They discovered Ms Boorne unconscious on a bed in the bedroom with "visible marks to her neck".
However his account presented glaring inconsistencies. Mr Cole pointed to the location these items would later be found in by police as suggestions the teen was being wholly untruthful.