FEW crimes have caused so much revulsion as the brutal murder of three-year-old Rosie Palmer. Abducted as she went to buy an ice cream, Rosie was sexually assaulted and killed, her body stuffed into a bin liner and hidden in a cupboard in a flat just yards from her home.

The savagery of the killing left deep and indelible wounds on her family, wounds that will never heal and need no re-opening. And the tragedy was felt throughout the community. No one could hear about the depraved circumstances surrounding her death without a wrenching feeling in the pit of their stomach.

Just when it seemed that Shaun Armstrong had caused as much grief as one human being could manage, he has contrived to add new trauma to an already unimaginable torment, a torment which began on a sunny summer's afternoon seven years ago.

Ginger-haired and freckle-faced and just three feet high, Rosie was as excited as any other three-year-old when the ice cream van pulled into Henrietta Street in Hartlepool, on Thursday, June 30, 1994. She ran home to get some money for a lolly. And then she disappeared.

The van's arrival had coincided with Armstrong's return from drinking six pints of beer and several large rums at a social club where he celebrated his 32nd birthday.

But details of what happened then have never been revealed, Armstrong's refusal to disclose how his victim met her death added to the agony of a family already struggling with unanswered questions. According to the police, the likelihood is that Rosie met her death within half-an-hour of her abduction, but it was to be three days before her body was discovered.

Ignorant of her fate, her step-father John Thornton went out to search for Rosie when she failed to appear. A few hours later, with still no sign of the little girl, the police were called and were joined by many residents of the close-knit community in a huge search.

By this time, Armstrong had been seen in a local shop with blood on his hands. He told the shopkeeper that he had been bitten by his dog, even though there was no sign of any teeth marks. After buying a bottle of cider, he went to a nearby beach with his dog. Security men at a nearby factory saw him going in and out of the sea, fully-clothed, and alerted police, who finally persuaded him to return home.

Officers visited his home twice over the succeeding days, but it was not until the Sunday that they carried out an extensive search of his Frederic Street flat, which was within sight of Rosie's home. And the search was to destroy the hopes and confirm the fears of a community which had been put on edge since the youngster's disappearance.

Inside a cupboard, a black plastic bin bag contained Rosie's decomposing remains. The state of the body meant it was impossible to pinpoint an exact cause of death, although a post-mortem confirmed she had been sexually assaulted. Police said it was possible that the assault itself had caused the fatal injuries.

When news of the discovery spread, a crowd gathered outside the flat, emotions heightened by the tension of the previous three days. The inflamed feelings continued as a furious mob gathered outside the town's magistrates court when Armstrong appeared charged with Rosie's murder a few days later.

He had originally been expected to deny the charge, on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but, when it came to the trial 13 months later, he pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

But his admission and the knowledge that he was behind bars did not ease the torment of her family. Mum Beverley attempted suicide in the wake of her daughter's death and later launched legal action to try to hold public bodies responsible for the crime.

Armstrong had been discharged from the Royal Navy on psychological grounds after just four months service and had been a patient at Hartlepool General Hospital. But Mrs Palmer's attempt to hold Tees Health Authority and Hartlepool and East Durham Health Trust responsible for Rosie's killing, on the grounds they allowed a former psychiatric patient who had allegedly admitted to having paedophile tendencies, to live near children, failed in the Court of Appeal. The court hearing was told that Mrs Palmer's life had been wrecked by the killing, causing her mental health problems. Five years after the murder, she was in court as a defendant, admitting assaults on two police officers and a doctor, for which she was given a conditional discharge.

The tragedy also claimed another victim in Wilf Aves, Rosie's grandfather, who doted on the little girl. Two days after Rosie's funeral, he attacked John Thornton with a knife, in his distress believing her step-father to have been responsible for her death. He spent a year on remand but was spared jail after he admitted unlawful wounding. A year later, and less than two years after Rosie's killing, he was dead. Friends said he died of a broken heart.