This article contains distressing details.

A man who was “sexually obsessed” with his stepdaughter has been jailed for a minimum of 35 years for murdering her at her university flat on her 20th birthday.

Nathan Owens, 34, from Hartlepool, killed Carla Georgescu in her room at the University of Lancashire property in Preston in February and then staged the scene to make it look like she had taken her own life.

Judge Jacobs said Carla had been described as polite, kind, intelligent and articulate with “a very gentle way” but she had suffered “a horrific brutal attack”.

He said Owens had a “longstanding sexual obsession with Carla” that was hidden from her and her mother.

The second-year student suffered knife wounds, including injuries where she tried to defend herself, internal injuries from a sexual assault and two “powerful blows to the head”, the judge said.

Owens also attempted to strangle her, the court heard.

Nicholas Lumley KC, for the prosecution, told Preston Crown Court Carla was “thriving” at the University of Lancashire, and had planned to continue her studies at a high level, “working towards a doctorate”.

He said she was “excitedly looking forward” to travelling to her home country of Romania to meet up with her first boyfriend.

Owens had pleaded guilty shortly before the trial to making and possessing indecent images of Carla when she was between the ages of two and four by superimposing her image on to sexualised pictures.

Lumley said Owens’ offending was “pre-meditated, non consensual, violent and sustained” and that Carla would have been in “very great pain” when he sexually assaulted her.

The judge said he was “sure” that fatal violence was “part of the plan” if Carla were to resist the sexual attack that Owens had decided to carry out.

He said “the last 90 minutes of Carla’s life are too horrendous to think about” but he said “it is likely and indeed to be hoped that at some point she became unconscious and so was not aware of everything that happened to her”.

Owens had not shown any remorse, he said, and had denied injuring Carla in any way.

The judge said he had “taken victim blaming to its limit” by suggesting she may have taken her own life.

Carla’s body was found in her room at the university’s Ribble Hall on 5 February.

The trial saw CCTV footage of Owens having a meal with Carla and her mother in the days before she died and him going to her flat in the early hours of 4 February wrapped in a blanket.

Carla let him into the building at about 04:00 GMT after he lied about picking something up and he left an hour-and-a-half later, the court heard.

That CCTV footage of Carla letting Owens in was the last time she was seen alive, Lancashire Police said.

Owens subjected his stepdaughter to a violent and sexual assault as he strangled her.

He then staged the scene to look as if Carla had taken her own life and returned home as though nothing had happened, disposing of evidence on his route.

Detectives arrested him soon afterwards but he denied any involvement in Carla’s death.

Owens chose not to give evidence at his trial.

Det Insp Pete Macdonald said: “Owens has taken Carla’s life, but he has also changed her mum’s completely.

“He has torn apart the family he was trusted to love.

“He is truly despicable.”

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