Tia Sharp’s mother is wracked with guilt for not preventing her daughter’s death at the hands of her former boyfriend, she revealed this week.

Natalie Sharp, 31, briefly dated Stuart Hazell before his relationship with her mum Christine Bicknell.

Speaking after Hazell admitted killing Tia on Monday, Natalie said: “I blame myself. I should have seen something. I should have stopped Hazell. I despise him.”

Miss Sharp, of Mitcham, slept at Hazell’s house during the search for Tia in New Addington, unaware her daughter’s body was metres away in the loft.

She said: “How could she be up there and I did not know?

“I’m still sick now when I think about it. I slept right beneath her all that time.”

Miss Sharp, who described her daughter as “a harmless little girl who couldn’t hurt a fly”, said of Hazell: “I trusted him 100 per cent.”