A FORMER NIGHTCLUB bouncer has been jailed for 35 years for the rape and murder of heavily-pregnant teenager Nikitta Grender in south Wales a year ago.

The 19-year-old’s remains were discovered by firemen at her home in Newport on 5 February. A post-mortem later showed that she had died from a stab wound. She was eight months pregnant and the unborn infant also died.

Carl Whant, 27, of Bettws, Newport was today sentenced to serve a minimum of 35 years in prison after being convicted of rape, murder, child destruction and arson.

The BBC reports that Newport Crown Court heard that Whant assaulted Grender at her home before setting fire to the premises and returning to a party he was attending with Grender’s boyfriend.

Reading a statement outside the court, Grender’s uncle said that for her parents to see their grandchild for the first time in a morgue “was the most heartbreaking thing we have ever had to do”. He said that the family remains in “total disbelief” over what had happened.

Responding to today’s statement, David Wooler of the Crown Prosecution Service in Wales said that a review of the initial evidence against Whant had shown “the truly horrific nature of the crimes committed”. He said the CPS felt it was extremely important to being separate charges over the death of the unborn child, a girl whom Grender had named Kelsey-May.

“Carl Whant was therefore also charged with the offence of child destruction… This is an offence which prohibits wilful acts causing the death of any child capable of being born alive – and given the advanced stage of Nikitta Grender’s pregnancy, Kelsey-May certainly fit that description,” Wooler said in a statement.