Tia Sharp: Man Jailed For Lying To Police

A neighbour of the grandmother of murdered schoolgirl Tia Sharp has been jailed for wasting police time after he lied about seeing her alive when she was already dead.

Natalie Sharp, Tia's mother, weeps after Meehan was found guilty

Bus driver Paul Meehan, 40, gave a false statement that he had seen the 12-year-old walk past his home on August 3 last year.

Meehan, who lived next to Christine Bicknell and her killer boyfriend Stuart Hazell, told officers he was "100% sure" he saw her outside his south London home.

But she had already been brutally murdered and her body hidden in the loft of Ms Bicknell's home in Croydon.

Meehan was convicted at Croydon Magistrates' Court of "causing wasteful employment of the police by making a false report".

Hazell was jailed in May for a minimum of 38 years for killing Tia. The court heard there was no suggestion Meehan was in league with Hazell.

Meehan remained impassive as the verdict was delivered. As the hearing adjourned, he sat down and buried his head in his hands.

Stuart Hazell is behind bars for Tia's murder

The last confirmed sighting of Tia was on Thursday, August 2, at 4.30pm. She was murdered some time that night going into the following morning.

With her family frantic with worry by the following Monday, Meehan told officers he had seen Tia walk past him the previous Friday while he was in his garden.

He gave a "vivid" description of what she was wearing, the court heard, which delayed police from interviewing Hazell earlier.

Police had spoken to Meehan about the case three times before he finally said he saw her.

His explanation was that he had "confabulated" seeing her - his brain mistakenly filled in the blanks in good faith.

Jocelyn Ledward, prosecuting, said Meehan had "deliberately lied" - possibly to put himself in an important position in the investigation.

Before jailing him for five months, District Judge Karen Hammond said Meehan was unreliable and that he had "basked to some degree" in the attention he received from being an apparently crucial witness.

Meehan, who had one previous conviction for theft, looked down and closed his eyes when he was told his sentence would begin immediately.

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