Kelly Anne Bates was just 17 when she was brutally killed
In one of the most gruesome recorded murders to ever take place in the UK, a 17-year-old was tortured for weeks by her abusive partner, who gouged out her eyes and partially scalped her.
On April 16, 1996, Greater Manchester Police received a call from a man reporting that his girlfriend, Kelly Anne Bates, had accidentally drowned in the bath, but this would be the start of many unknown horrors for the police team.
James Patterson Smith, who was in his late 40s, fabricated a story he had tried and failed to resuscitate Kelly but this was quickly dismissed once officers attended Smith’s home to find Kelly’s lifeless body covered in blood.
Detectives determined the 17-year-old girl had suffered dozens of horrific injuries at the hands of the man who had exploited her.
“In my career, I have examined almost 600 victims of homicide but I have never come across injuries so extensive,” admitted the pathologist who examined Kelly’s body.
The true extent of one of Britain’s darkest crimes only became clear when Smith attended Gorton Police Station, telling staff he’d accidentally killed Kelly after a dispute while she was in the bath – though his story soon fell apart.
Analysis of Kelly’s body revealed she had endured weeks of brutal torture before passing away, with more than 150 logged injuries inflicted to the young girl in a roughly month-long period.
Prior to her eventual death, Kelly was starved by Smith, who she’d brought home as her boyfriend aged 16, despite a more than 30 year age gap.
She had been tied to a radiator by her hair, burned multiple times with an iron, stabbed dozens of times all over her body and mouth and disfigured by Smith, who had partially scalped her and gouged out her eyes.
The pathologist noted Kelly’s eyes had been removed “not less than five days and not more than three weeks before her death,” which came in the form of drowning.
Peter Openshaw, the prosecutor in Smith’s later trial, told the court: “It was as if he deliberately disfigured her, causing her the utmost pain, distress and degradation.
“The injuries were not the result of one sudden eruption of violence; they must have been caused over a long period [and] were so extensive and so terrible that the defendant must have deliberately and systematically tortured the girl.”
During proceedings, other woman who Smith had harmed recounted their experiences with the abuser, who was described as being obsessively jealous and manipulative.
Shockingly, Smith countered he was the actual victim and that Kelly regularly taunted him and even proposed, with no evidence, that she inflicted injuries upon herself to frame him.
These accusations were disregarded by the jury, who found the 49-year-old guilty of Kelly Anne Bates’ murder, sentencing him to a minimum of 20 years in prison.
Smith’s first parole hearing took place in 2023, where he was denied release from prison.