Mother Jailed For Life For Murdering Two Daughters

1 August 2019, 17:25 | Updated: 2 August 2019, 14:44

Louise Porton, who murdered her two young daughters after they "got in the way" of her sex life, has been jailed at Birmingham Crown Court for life with a minimum term of 32 years.

Louise Porton, 23 killed her daughters, Lexi Draper, 3, and 17-month-old Scarlett Vaughan in Rugby in 2018.

The mother had researched how long it took for body parts to go cold.

The part-time model denied responsibility for their deaths but was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court after a five-week trial.

Prosecutors said her daughters "got in the way" of Ms Porton's sex life.

The day after Lexi's death, Ms Porton accepted 41 friend requests on the dating app Meet Me and was also messaging men on another app, Badoo, the jury heard.

When Lexi was ill in hospital, just over a week before she died, the jury heard that Ms Porton took topless photos in the toilets and was arranging to perform sex acts for money with a man she had met through a website.

The 23-year-old suffocated Lexi in the early hours of January 15 last year and was then heard "laughing" at a funeral parlour two days before killing Scarlett just over two weeks later, on February 1.

The girls' father, Chris Draper, did not have contact with them and had never met Scarlett, something he said made their deaths "all the more heart breaking" for him.

"The only comfort is that Lexi and Scarlett are together," he said.

Det Supt Pete Hill, from Warwickshire Police, said: "I will never be able to understand why Louise Porton murdered her children.

"She has lied repeatedly to friends, family and professionals to cover her tracks. At no point throughout the whole investigation has she ever shown any real signs of emotion."