THE killer of five year old Rosie McCann was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment for her abduction, rape and murder with a recommendation that he serve at least 25 years.
Pub disc jockey Andrew Pountley (32) was told by Mrs Justice Heather Steel at Manchester Crown Court: "You are, and will continue to be, a danger to women and children."
Pountley's 16 day trial had heard how he snatched Rosie from her bed at her mother's home in Kipling Road, Oldham, just over a year ago in an act of drunken revenge.
He took the little girl to get even with her mother, his lover Mrs Josie Mahon, with whom he had a turbulent relationship.
He brought her to his own home more than a mile away in Kew Road, in the town, where he raped her before suffocating her and dumping her body in an alleyway 200 yards from his flat.
The judge passed two life sentences on Pountley for the rape and murder, and a concurrent six year sentence for the abduction.
She told Pountley, who stood expressionless in the dock: "I am considering whether in your case life imprisonment should mean just that life.
"I have decided, however, my duty to the public only extends to ensure that you will not be released from custody until the danger you present no longer exists and to ensure no other child will ever suffer at your hands as Roselene did."
Pountley had continued to deny his crimes throughout the trial.
Only after sentence was passed did the jury learn that Pountley had also been charged with the attempted rape and the indecent assault of a 13 year old girl. The charges were ordered to lie on the file.
The judge told Pountley: "This case has been about your anger and your urge to control and your urge to punish.
"On the night of January 13th last year, it is clear Roselene's abduction resulted basically from a jealous and wicked motive to punish the woman you regarded as your wife."
She said the little girl had gone with him trustingly because he was effectively her stepfather.
"What was in your mind as you took her from her home to your home we shall never know," said the judge.
"But the evidence clearly shows what happened to her at your home was very, very serious indeed. The pain she suffered at your hands before she was suffocated can only be imagined."