A teenager has been jailed for 20 years after raping and murdering an artist then burning her naked body.

Curtis Moyse, 18, gagged and strangled Leah Fray in her own flat before setting fire to her in an attempt to conceal evidence.

He was due to stand trial today, but changed his plea to guilty at the last minute.

David Herbert QC, prosecuting, said the victim was subjected to a horrendous ordeal having been beaten with a saucepan and injured with a fork.

He said: ‘The final minutes of Leah Fray’s life would have been both terrifying and extremely painful.

‘The evidence indicated that the murder had a sexual nature to it.

‘She’d been bound at the wrists and some of the fire damage to her body was concentrated in the area of her groin and inner thighs.

‘The overwhelming inference is she’s been tied up and raped before she was killed.’

Moyse had previous admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility, but admitted murder at Leicester Crown Court today.

The court heard that Leah, 27, was a talented artist and poet suffering from mental health difficulties which led to her becoming addicted to class A drugs.

Firefighters found her dead when they responded to the blaze in Mere Road, Leicester, just after 7am on April 21.

She had two re-sealable plastic bags in her mouth and throat that contained ear bud headphones.

Mr Herbert said: ‘Those items had clearly been forced there to silence her during the fatal attack and also to choke her.’

Moyse, of Avonside Drive in Leicester, killed her the day before his 18th birthday.

He was told he would serve a minimum term of 20 years and 10 months.

Judge Nicholas Dean QC said Moyse had expressed no remorse but instead displayed ‘callous contempt’ for Leah’s life, which he ‘extinguished in utterly brutal circumstances’.

Her family and friends clapped loudly in the public gallery as Moyse was led to the cells.

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