The man who discovered Cheshire schoolgirl Sophie Hook’s body has told how his torment never goes away 20 years on from the murder.

Gerry Davies, 75, found the body of seven-year-old Sophie on the beach at Llandudno’s North Shore after she was snatched from a tent in the garden of her uncle’s home.

The Great Budworth youngster had been murdered and brutally raped by paedophile Howard Hughes, who was later handed a minimum 50-year jail term.

Howard Hughes who was convicted of the murder of Sophie Hook
Howard Hughes who was convicted of the murder of Sophie Hook

Grandfather Mr Davies, who still lives in Llandudno, said he recalls “with difficulty” the day he stumbled across her body on July 30, 1995.

He said: “It’s still there. It will never go away and that’s it. I’m just very sorry it happened – there we are.”

Mr Davies, who has previously described Sophie’s body as “marble white”, was walking his two dogs when he made the grisly discovery near Craig-y-Don paddling pool.

He was among the mourners at Sophie’s funeral, which he had not intended to go to at first.

The little girl’s parents, Julie and Chris, had asked if it would be possible for him to attend because they wanted to meet him.

Mourners were presented with a booklet containing a montage of photographs.

Mr Davies got to the first page and broke down - the first time he had wept after finding the body.

Mr Davies added: “I remember leaving the house when it had just turned 7am, walking down the beach and seeing a little body there and that’s it.”

He thought her body was a tailor’s dummy, but knew something was wrong because the dogs ran away from the scene.

Mr Davies took off his T-shirt and laid it over her lifeless body before rushing to a nearby phone box to dial 999.

He told the police he had found the body of a girl near the paddling pool.

In the years afterwards he set up pressure group Parents Aiming to Right Abysmal Sex Offenders Laws (Parasol) and also began a journal of his reflections up to the funeral.

He said neither move helped him bury the memory of discovering Sophie’s body.

Parasol has since been wound up and he never completed more than a “little, tiny bit” of the journal.

The Hooks had travelled from their home in Great Budworth, near Winsford, to visit Julie’s sister, Fiona Jones, and her husband Danny, in Llandudno, for cousin Luke Jones’ ninth birthday.

As the celebrations drew to a close, the children were so enthusiastic about continuing the fun that the families agreed to allow them to camp out in a tent in the garden.

Reports from the time of the murder suggest only when Hughes’ father Gerald visited him at the police station did he break down and confess: “Dad, I did it ...You don’t know what it is like to be sexually frustrated; you don’t know what it is.”

He went on, his father said, to tell unprompted the story of what happened. However, he would later deny it in court.

Earlier that day he is believed to have attempted to abduct six-year-old Alexandra Roberts who was doing handstands in a park a few minutes away from the garden, but the girl ran away.

Hughes was born with the sex chromosome abnormality XYY syndrome, which caused him to grow at an increased speed.

He was 6ft tall by the age of 11, and 6 foot 8 ins by adulthood. He also had behavioural problems, learning disabilities and dyslexia.

By the age of 19 Hughes had 17 convictions for assault, burglary, theft, criminal damage, threatening behaviour, motoring offences and possession of weapons.

He had also been linked with a string of sex attacks on children that never reached court. After being convicted of Sophie’s murder he would later launch a bid for £50,000 compensation for spending time in Wrexham’s notorious Bryn Estyn care home.

Bryn Estyn was the subject of 138 complaints in Sir Ronald Waterhouse’s inquiry into physical and sexual abuse at North Wales care homes.