THE MAN WHO admitted to the rape and murder of 12-year-old Michaela Davis in Dublin last year has been sentenced to life in prison.

Jonathan Byrne, from Lohunda Downs in Clonsilla, had last month admitted raping and murdering Davis at the playing fields on Porterstown Road in Clonsilla on 27 August 2010.

The schoolgirl’s body was discovered beside the Royal Canal in thick undergrowth by a man out walking his dog the following day. A post mortem at the time confirmed she was sexually attacked. An inquest heard she had been strangled.

RTÉ reports that then 18-year-old Byrne met Davis, whom he was in relationship at the time and knew was only 12, on the night of 27 August 2010 and raped her twice, strangled her and then dragged her body around the fields, not knowing what to do with it, before dumping it beside the canal bank.

He was sentenced to life in prison and was placed on the sex offenders register.

Michaela remembered

After the verdict, the family said they were happy with the outcome, saying the core of their family life had come to an end after the murder.

Speaking three days after the murder the family said the death had been a “heart-wrenching situation”. Michaela had just started secondary school and had received her first homework assignment which was “never to be answered”.

They described her death as the “the needless loss of a young child, the awful tragedy of a girl barely beginning life”.

A Facebook group set up to remember the schoolgirl has over 27,000 ‘Likes’ and was last updated on the first anniversary of Michaela’s death with an update partly reading: “It Takes A Minute To Say Hello And Forever To Say Goodbye”.

Read: Man pleads guilty to murder of 12-year-old Michaela Davis >