A mentally-ill teenager who murdered a 10-year-old ballet dancer at a family Christmas party was not charged with abducting another girl two years earlier because of confusion between police and lawyers, an inquiry has found.
Had Paul Smith been prosecuted for the gunpoint kidnapping, his mental condition - Asperger's Syndrome - and increasingly erratic behaviour would have been spotted years before he killed young Rosie May Storrie in December 2003.
Smith was 18 when he stripped little Rosie May half-naked and pushed her face down on to a bed as she desperately struggled to breathe while her parents chatted downstairs at the party at Smith's uncle's house in Normanton, Leicestershire.
He was jailed for life after being found guilty of murdering the little girl, who was found slumped unconscious on the bed and died a day later in hospital.
A report into the way authorities handled the case of Smith found that Crown Prosecution Service lawyers failed to tell senior police officers of a decision not to prosecute him for the earlier crime. Although he was known to police, the local mental health board and the education authority, none of the agencies had the full picture.
The report by the Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board said: "It is clear that no single agency had full knowledge of all three alleged incidents, so opportunities for professionals to identify Paul's incrementally risky behaviour were limited."
At his trial, the court heard that Smith, who suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, had a history of violence against young girls, including the abduction of a 16-year-old at gunpoint less than two years before his attack on Rosie May.
The teenage victim was tied up and gagged before being marched by Smith to the garage, where he bundled her into the boot of his father's car. It later emerged that a junior detective and a CPS lawyer had failed to tell senior officers that the case against Smith was being discontinued.
The report said: "If Paul had been prosecuted for the kidnapping he would possibly have been sent to Crown Court for sentence. Whichever court he would have appeared in, there would undoubtedly have been pre-sentence reports ordered and these would probably have included a psychiatric report, which would have been of considerable benefit at that time."
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After he was convicted of Rosie May's murder, her parents, Graham and Mary Storrie, said the tragedy could have been prevented.
