The murderer of a tiny toddler who went missing in 1994 has been turned down once again for parole, despite insisting he is no longer a threat to the public.
Shaun Anthony Armstrong, known as Toby, is serving a life sentence behind bars for the vicious rape and murder of little Rosie Palmer, who was just three years old when she innocently went to buy an ice-cream on Thursday June 30, 1994.
The tot, who had been playing at a neighbour's house in Henrietta Street, Hartlepool after being collected from nursery school by her stepdad, heard the cheerful chimes of an ice-cream van and went home to ask for some money.
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Gary Amerigo, the ice-cream man, later revealed little Rosie was his only customer and didn't have quite enough coins to pay for her lolly. "Only Rosie came up to my van that day. She didn't have enough money but I gave her the ice-cream anyway. She seemed just her usual self, bright and cheerful," he told the court.
Seconds after walking away with her purchase, Rosie was snatched by evil Armstrong, who was celebrating his 32nd birthday that day. He was drunk, having been on a boozy bender for the past two days, and had arrived back at his flat by taxi at around 3.30pm - just as little Rosie was making her way to the ice-cream van.
It wasn't until around two hours later, at 5.30pm, that stepdad John Thornton realised Rosie was no longer playing with her neighbour, and that she hadn't been seen since buying her snack. With rising panic, he and some other neighbours started searching for her, and at 8.45pm she was officially reported as missing to the police.
What happened next was any parent's worst nightmare.
For three days, police scoured the estate where Rosie lived in a bid to find any trace of the little girl. They went from door to door asking locals whether they'd seen Rosie, bringing in tracker and even searching warehouses and disused buildings at the nearby docks to find her. A lifeboat was launched to search the sea in case she had wandered off and drowned.
On July 1, police called at Armstrong's flat while conducting their door-to-door enquiries. He was, officers later reported, "co-operative, friendly and helpful", answering their questionnaire aimed at tracing Rosie's final movements. Satisfied Armstrong was not a suspect, the police moved on.
The following day, with no sign of Rosie, police returned to Armstrong's flat while carrying out "cursory searches", but once again, there was no suspicion of the man living there.
Finally, on Sunday July 3 - three days after the toddler had disappeared - police once again knocked on Armstrong's door. This time the 32-year-old unemployed man's conduct had changed: he appeared "very shifty, on edge and looking very worried". Suspicious, detectives arrested him and searched his flat again, this time heading upstairs to the loft.
It was there they found the mutilated body of little Rosie Palmer. She had been stuffed into a bin bag and and hidden under a sofa in the loft, stripped of her shorts and underwear, which had been secreted in a bag nearby.
Armstrong, denying any wrongdoing, immediately claimed that "someone else must have put the body there".
Rosie was laid to rest in a highly publicised funeral, her broken body carefully entrusted to a small white coffin. Flowers and soft toys had been left outside her home by devastated locals, and hundreds of people lined the streets as three hearses led a cortege to the Salvation Army Citadel.
"She was always a bright, happy little girl who was full of life, never able to sit still as is the case with any three-year-old," said Salvation Army Captain James Smith, conducting the service. "It was always a joy to have her around. Her Sunday and nursery school teachers are going to miss her greatly."
'We cannot start to understand the pain and anguish Rosie's family have experienced. No-one has any words or answers that can take away that pain."
Of the many wreaths and flowers sent by well-wishers was one in the shape of a rocking horse, sent by inmates of Holme House Prison. It was signed: ''From all the lads in Holme House, with deepest sympathy'.'
Armstrong, meanwhile, was in custody while prosecutors built the case against him. He had a history of trouble with the police and had been linked to sexual offences against other children, although no charges had ever been brought.
He also had a string of psychiatric problems and a personality disorder, and had been released from Hartlepool General Hospital and housed near Rosie's family not long before he committed his heinous crime.
Armstrong, a prescription drug addict, was also known around the estate as 'Tony the Pervert' and had roused suspicion on the afternoon of her murder when he appeared at a local shop with blood on his hand, claiming he was going to "help look for the little girl who had vanished". This was around 4.30pm, an hour after he snatched her, and she had not yet been reported missing.
He claimed the blood was from being bitten by his dog. He then took the dog and a bottle of cider to a nearby beach, and started running in and out of the sea for two hours until the police were called and told him to go home.
In custody, evil Armstrong hatched a plot to feign insanity and plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, thereby escaping the more serious sentence for Rosie's murder. But he scuppered his own plans when crime writer Bernard O'Mahoney wrote to him pretending to be a woman, and Armstrong wrote back confessing to Rosie's murder and laying out his plans for the trial.
Bernard handed Armstrong's letter to the police and it was shown to the jury at his trial. Armstrong was then forced to change his plea to guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16 years. He later threatened to sue the author for £15,000 damages, claiming his confession was obtained under false pretences and his privacy was breached.
Because of the length of time it had taken to find Rosie's body, it was difficult to pin down her exact cause of death. Analysis found Armstrong had seriously sexually assaulted her, and the trial judge ruled it was likely Armstrong had suffocated her when she cried out at the assault.
He told the convict: "Your depraved conduct led you into the murder of this little girl. Your counsel speaks of your state of anguish and grief. It can surely be as nothing compared to what was suffered by little Rosie Palmer's family."
Rosie's mum, midwife Beverley Aves, was left unable to work after her daughter's shocking death. She campaigned tirelessly to prevent Armstrong from being released after his minimum term was served, and even brought a £200,000 claim against the local health authority for allowing Armstrong to be released from treatment after he had made threats to kill children.
She unsuccessfully lobbied to have Armstrong face a fresh count of rape of her daughter, as despite the sex offenders register being brought in, in part because of him, he would theoretically be able to leave prison without having to sign it.
"I want him convicted and given an additional sentence," she said in 2010. "I am not even asking for justice, he will get that when he meets his maker. I just want the case treated as it should be.
"I could take a private case which would cost thousands, even though he would get legal aid. I’m not giving up even though I shouldn’t have to do this. He should have been tried for it in the first place."
But Gerry Wareham, chief Crown prosecutor for CPS Cleveland, said at the time a new criminal charge of rape could not be brought against Armstrong. Instead, he said, the paedophile would be on licence for the rest of his life and under the supervision of the Probation Service. "This is a far more effective restriction and safeguard than any order and means he could be recalled to prison at any time," added Mr Wareham.
Since his conviction, Armstrong has attempted to be released eight times, most recently in February 2025. But a Parole Board hearing denied his request because it would not be "safe for the protection of the public". The panel also recommended that he should not be transferred to an open prison, although he has no history of violence in jail and has a lower security grading.
"This was a more finely balanced decision but the panel assessed Mr Armstrong as not yet being ready for relocation to open conditions and noted that there were some remaining areas of risk to be addressed," the Parole Board wrote.
"The panel considered that Mr Armstrong was appropriately located in custody where outstanding levels of risk could be contained." It added that he would be eligible for another review "in due course".
It comes as prison overcrowding hits the headlines again, with a senior Ministry of Justice official warning that the government will "run out of prison places in just five months' time" if urgent action isn't taken.
More than a thousand inmates will be released early to free up 1,400 prison spaces in England and Wales, with those serving between one and four years who are recalled to jail for breaching their licence set to be released after 28 days.
