Horror and Hope: Bute in the aftermath of Alesha MacPhail murder

Seven months on from the brutal killing of the six-year-old, there is still a sense of shock and disbelief that such a violent, cruel act could have taken place in a community so trusting that many don’t even lock their doors at night.

It is a community weighed down by grief: grief at the loss of an innocent young girl’s life – and the loss of trust in others. Speaking to islanders there is a feeling their greatest wish is to turn the clock back to a time where Bute was known only as a quaint little holiday isle rather than a place now associated with the rape and murder of a sunny little girl.

Stunned by the enormity of the crime and the inevitable media glare, the community is still struggling to come to terms with what has happened, according to Church of Scotland minister Owain Jones. “There is an air of unreality to something that’s terribly real, and nothing feels the same after it,” he said.

Today as Alesha’s killer, 16-year-old Aaron Thomas Campbell, faces a lengthy jail sentence, prayers were being said in the island for the little girl and her family.

“She and her family have been constantly in everyone’s thoughts,” said Jones. “They are at the epicentre of this. There will inevitably be others who have been especially profoundly affected, and, again, the community will be aware and supportive of them. They are all constantly in my prayers.

“But in different ways, we have all, as individuals and as an island, had to live with these things, and there’s no question but that we will all be taken back now, by the trial, to events with which we haven’t begun to come to terms.

“I would guess that most people’s feelings would be like mine – a mixture of dread and a sense of inevitability that these things will be news once more. But this is a very resilient little island community, and we will cope.

“There is an abiding sense of deep gratitude for the sensitivity and conspicuous thoroughness with which the police and other agencies took us through an incredibly difficult time, and that has left us with a stronger foundation for coping with the future.”

READ MORE: Andrew Tickell: Public interest weighed in favour of identifying Aaron Campbell

While the media circus will move on, Provost of Argyll and Bute Len Scoular said Alesha would not be forgotten by the islanders.

“Words cannot begin to explain the pain and anguish being felt by everyone in our very caring community here on Bute,” he said. “Alesha will never be forgotten by the people of Bute and my thoughts are with Alesha’s loved ones at this most awful time.”

At the end of Campbell’s trial this week the islanders were praised by police for their help with inquiries. “Alesha’s senseless and barbaric murder shocked the small community on Bute and people across Scotland,” said Detective Superintendent Stuart Houston. “The effects of her death are still being felt today. From the moment Alesha was first reported missing – at the start of her summer holidays on Bute – the local community rallied together and did everything they possibly could do help. I would like to again thank everyone who came forward and helped the inquiry team with what was a particularly harrowing case.”

Alesha was reported missing while on a visit to her grandparents on Bute on July 2 last year.

She was abducted during the night, then raped and murdered by Campbell, whose identity was revealed at the end of his trial after judge Lord Matthews allowed reporting restrictions to be lifted.

A plea for Alesha’s name to be remembered and not his has now been made on social media by the Justice for Alesha Facebook page.

The posting states: “Share Alesha’s photo. Not his. Share Alesha’s story. Not his. He doesn’t deserve to be seen. Alesha does. Alesha’s life was important and he took it from her. It wasn’t his to decide! Don’t forget Alesha’s face because his is being shown. Alesha’s story isn’t over.”

The sentiment was echoed by one coffee shop owner on Bute who did not want to be named. “We don’t want to be reminded about him,” he said, adding that the community would bear the scar of what had happened. “Everyone will pull together though,” he said. “That’s obvious. We will have to try to move on.” He added that it would help once the spotlight was no longer on the community.

If Bute has as close a community as Dunblane then there is hope that people will pull together.

Speaking years after the 1996 massacre in which 16 pupils and their teacher were killed by gunman Thomas Hamilton at Dunblane Primary School, tennis coach Judy Murray said the murders had brought people closer together.

“I’m not a spokesman for the town but I think it definitely brought the town closer together in the immediate few years after the tragedy,” she said, adding that the community had now recovered “really well”.

However Ann Cleeves, author of the popular Shetland crime novels, has pointed out that media interest in island murders is greater than for similar incidents in cities. Referring to the killing of 16-year-old fisherman Liam Aitchison on the island of Lewis in 2011, the first murder on the Western Isles for 43 years, she said there was often an idealised image of the Scottish islands, a reluctance to believe that bad things happen in beautiful places.

She said “sinister events” on islands seemed particularly “unexpected, counter-intuitive, shocking”.

“Certainly Liam Aitchison’s death provoked more interest from the media than would a similar incident in a city,” she said. “A TV presenter even found it fit subject matter for a joke, provoking outrage. Reporters think it odd, even a little amusing, that police were looking for witnesses who were ‘wearing hoodies’. Well, what were they expecting? Teenagers in hand-knitted jerseys and bonnets? Do they believe that young people in remote communities are so very different from their urban counterparts?”

Cleeves added there was an inclination to think of such murders as a story – that there is an inability to take in the reality of the killing.

That still seems to be the case with the murder of Shamsuddin Mahmood in Orkney 25 years ago. The killing may be about to be given the Netflix treatment, according to true crime writer Wensley Clarkson who has secured a book deal about the racially motivated murder of the 26-year-old waiter by islander Michael Ross. “I think it’s one of the most extraordinary true crime stories in UK criminal history,” he said, adding that Netflix had shown interest in making a six-part series about the case.

It’s a notoriety Orkney could probably do without – and the islanders on Bute appear united in their desire for Alesha’s death to be treated with more sensitivity.

“All we can ask is that people who have been deeply hurt by these things be treated gently and with understanding,” said Jones.