The man who murdered  Tia Sharp has been jailed for life to serve at least 38 years.

Stuart Hazell shocked the courtroom in the Old Bailey yesterday morning by pleading guilty to murder, after the indictment was put to him again.

The 37-year-old was today told he would serve live imprisonment to serve at least 38 years behind bars, before he could apply for parole.

Members from the public gallery shouted "beast" as Hazell was led away. Christine Sharp was in tears and had to be comforted by family members.

The Judge told Hazell: "Tia was a sparky girl who was full of life, but you took that life from her.

"All that lay ahead of her- a career, loves and family of her own will now never be. The loss has been devastating for her mother, her father and all her relatives and friends."

Hazell was also told the concealment of Tia's body in the loft made Tia's family suffer the agony of uncertainty as to what had happened to her.

The Judge added: "And time after time, you spun the wholly false story that Tia had left home on Friday morning and just disappeared."

During the four day trial, the court heard Hazell, a convicted drug dealer, sexually assaulted and murdered 12-year-old Tia from Pollards Hill, Mitcham, when she came to stay with him and her grandmother on August 3, last year.

The cannabis smoking window cleaner had spent months visiting online pornography sites, and had even secretly filmed Tia putting cream on her legs in her underwear and as she slept.

Jurors were shown a graphic photograph of Tia's naked body, taken by Hazell after he murdered her.

He then wrapped her body in a black bed sheet and bin bags and placed it in the loft, before feigning innocence during an eight day search for the Raynes Park High pupil.

Police said Hazell, who briefly dated Tia's mum Natalie before settling down with her grandmother Christine, had searched 'daddy daughter incest,' 'little girls in glasses' and 'violent forced rape' on his mobile phone.

Hazell, who was described as having an "extraordinary capacity to live through lies," by his own counsel, later told a prison guard Tia had accidentally fallen down the stairs and broken her neck and he had panicked.