On 2 July 2018, six-year-old Scottish girl Alesha Sarah MacPhail was abducted from her bed and murdered by 16-year-old Aaron Thomas Campbell.

Alesha, from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, was three days into a stay with her grandparents on the Isle of Bute when Campbell entered their unlocked home at approximately 2am.

Upon finding the child asleep, Campbell picked her up, carried her to the grounds of a demolished hotel, then raped and killed her by applying pressure to her face and neck.

He logged a "special defence of incrimination" by claiming that Robert's girlfriend, Toni McLachlan, was responsible for murdering the child and framing him.

Campbell was tied to the crime by CCTV footage, DNA, and fibres from his clothing, and the jury returned a guilty verdict after three hours of deliberation.

[2] The case generated a large amount of media interest in the United Kingdom, with the presiding judge Lord Matthews stating that he "could not think of a crime in recent times that has attracted such revulsion".

[3] The perceived safety of the Isle of Bute contributed to the public's shock, while the young age of the culprit prompted discussion and debate around the nature of underage murderers.

She lived in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, with her mother Georgina Lochrane (aged 23 in 2018) and her younger sister [4] She attended Chapelside School and had recently completed Primary Two at the time of her death.

[15] On 1 July 2018, three days into her summer visit, Alesha was put to bed in her room at her grandparents' seafront home with a Peppa Pig DVD playing.

Alesha's grandmother, Angela King, notified the police at 6:23am while the rest of the family began searching the local area and spreading word of her disappearance.

At 8:54am the police were notified by Jorge Williams, a local man who had seen King's Facebook appeal, that he had discovered Alesha's lifeless and naked body.

[16][20][22] Georgina Lochrane, who was 70 miles (110 km) away in Airdrie, learned about her daughter's death via King's Facebook page before being escorted to Bute.

In response to the police request for information, she checked the CCTV system installed outside her home and found footage of her son leaving and returning twice during the hours that the girl disappeared.

[18] Additional CCTV footage, supplied by members of the public, showed an individual walking along the shoreline at 2:25 and 2:26am, appearing to carry something in his arms.

[37] A 16-year-old girl testified that hours after Alesha's body was discovered, Campbell filmed himself in a Snapchat video, sent to a group of 25 people, with the words "Found the guy who has done it.

[12] Campbell logged a "special defence of incrimination", in which he argued that Toni McLachlan, the girlfriend of Alesha's father, was responsible for the murder.

[35] Campbell's lawyer asserted that McLachlan was jealous of the attention the child received and that her relationship with Alesha's father was physically abusive.

[3] Campbell answered questions for two hours, offering explanations for the prosecution's evidence while appearing "strikingly composed", "unfazed", and "articulate" according to a journalist for The Guardian.

Lord Matthews described the evidence against Campbell as "overwhelming" and stated that the teenager had committed "some of the most wicked and evil crimes this court has ever heard of in decades of dealing with depravity".

Reports prepared by Dr. Gary Macpherson, a consultant forensic clinical psychologist, revealed that Campbell had since confessed to the crime in detail.

[13] Lord Matthews described the teenager as a "cold, calculating, remorseless and dangerous individual ... completely lacking in victim empathy” before handing him a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years.

[8] Alesha MacPhail's murder received significant media attention in the United Kingdom: the presiding judge stated that he "could not think of a crime in recent times that has attracted such revulsion".

[41] Initial reports emphasised the unlikelihood of the crime occurring on the small Isle of Bute, which was once a popular tourist destination for Scotland's city dwellers.

[24][27] The local reverend Owain Jones commented, "Bute is one of these places that is incredibly safe, you take all sorts of things for granted here".

[42] The revelations of casual teenage drinking, sex, and drug use on the island were also a source of surprise; Libby Brooks of The Guardian wrote that the MacPhail trial revealed "the reality of life on Bute beyond the picture postcard", where the population is declining and deprivation growing.

In an effort to make sense of the crime, public and media comments focussed on "[Campbell's] reported obsession with violent video games, in particular the Slender Man meme, lurid analysis of his YouTube posts and speculation that cannabis psychosis was linked to this and other killings.

[41] John Marshall, who assessed Campbell after his conviction, argued that young children should be tested for psychopathic traits so that interventions can start early,[44] a suggestion that caused controversy in the field of child psychology.

[45] Before the suspect was confirmed to be a local boy, rumours surfaced on social media – spearheaded by the right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins – that the culprit was one of the Syrian refugees housed on the island in 2015.

Hopkins was condemned for making the implication without any evidence; Michael Russell MSP described the comments as "an awful, divisive, hate-filled lie", and Alan Smith of The Herald wrote that Alesha's "tragic death was being used to further the cause of the far-right".

[48] On 20 June, nearly a year after her death, Alesha's primary school opened a playhouse built in her memory, decorated with artwork designed by the pupils.