The crime that sickened Britain: How depraved lorry driver abducted and murdered a French student then kept her body for ten days while he enjoyed a family Christmas

A parole hearing was held for the truck driver who brutally murdered a French student and hid her body in the cabin of his vehicle for 10 days so he could spend Christmas with his family.

If successful, Stuart Morgan will be able to walk free on the 30th anniversary of the murder that shocked the country.

Morgan, now 65, was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Céline Figard a week before Christmas 1995 and sentenced to life in prison.

The lorry driver hid Céline’s body in a bunk bed in the cab of his lorry and parked it opposite the family home in Poole, Dorset, then dumped it in a waiting room in Hawford, near Worcester, 10 days later.

At his trial at Worcester Crown Court, the jury was told he picked up the Céline at Chieveley service station on the M4 in Berkshire on December 19, 1995.

The teenager, who lived in the farming village of Ferrieres-les-Scey southeast of Paris, was supposed to hitchhike to Salisbury, where he took the train to meet his cousin at a hotel in Fordingbridge, Hants.

The accounting student became interested in the UK after his visit in 1990 and traveled there many times.

But he never made it to Fordingbridge, and the increasingly desperate search for Céline became front-page news during the festival season. Meanwhile, Morgan was enjoying a ‘normal’ Christmas with his 11-year-old son and wife.

Morgan, now 65, was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering 19-year-old Céline Figard (pictured) a week before Christmas 1995.

Céline’s naked remains were discovered by a driver stopped in a waiting line on New Year’s Day 1996.

An autopsy revealed that Céline had been strangled and beaten with a heavy instrument. She was raped before being killed.

Police soon discovered him getting into a Mercedes truck at the M4 service station.

The incident was featured on the BBC program Crimewatch in late January 1996. Morgan was cited as a suspect by two people and arrested in February 1996.

The man, who was 36 at the time, denied murder and told the jury he had ‘consensual’ sex with Céline before dropping her off unharmed in Southampton. It took the jury just four hours to find him guilty.

Morgan was convicted of murder in October 1996 and sentenced to at least 20 years behind bars. He continues to deny murder and has filed one unsuccessful appeal against his conviction.

But the jury at Morgan’s trial heard overwhelming evidence implicating the truck driver in Céline’s murder.

Detectives found some of Céline’s belongings in Morgan’s garage, a blood-stained bunk bed found in the cab of the truck, and drops of blood spattered inside the cabin.

An autopsy revealed that Céline had been strangled and beaten with a heavy instrument. She was raped before being killed

Speaking after the verdict, Céline’s father, Bernard Figard, said: ‘This man will never pay enough for what he did. I hope he spends the rest of his days rotting in prison. Finding him not guilty would be like killing my daughter a second time.’

Addressing the details of the case, he added: ‘When he heard the graphic accounts of Céline’s ordeal it did not seem to impress or affect him at all.

‘I wonder if he has nightmares about what he did to my daughter. How did he feel when he remembered the helpless cry of his powerless victim?

‘How does he feel when he remembers that his own hands are covered in my beautiful daughter’s blood?’

The incident received widespread news coverage in the UK over the Christmas and New Year period, amid fears that it may be linked to a string of murders around the Midlands that police have branded the “Midlands Ripper”.

The murder investigation involved the UK’s first national DNA screening programs to catch a murder suspect, involving more than 5,000 lorry drivers.

The testing was done by occupation, not geography. Although the test was voluntary, anyone who refused automatically placed themselves under suspicion.

As it turned out, Morgan was arrested in February 1996 after a colleague recognized his photo from a photo adaptation. He was later accused and convicted of Céline’s murder.

In 2016, London’s High Court was told Morgan still insisted he was not a sex killer. Image: Drawing of Morgan in court

Detectives concluded that after raping, strangling and bludgeoning her, the man carried her body in his vehicle for ten days over the Christmas period and then dumped her.

Morgan was given a life sentence with a recommendation that he be sentenced to at least twenty years in prison.

He remains detained at HM Frankland, Co Durham, as his last application for parole was rejected in 2022.

Céline was buried in her native village in January 1996, in a ceremony attended by family, friends and politicians.

He is commemorated in a memorial garden established at a church in the village of Ombersley in Worcestershire, England, near where his body was found.

The 20-year minimum tariff on Morgan’s sentence expired in February 2016, and he has since failed five times to convince the Parole Board that he is no longer a danger.

A Parole Board spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that Stuart Morgan’s parole review was referred to the Parole Board by the Secretary of State for Justice and followed standard processes.

‘The Parole Board’s decisions focus solely on what risk a prisoner might pose to society if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.’

In 2016, London’s High Court was told Morgan still insisted he was not a sex killer. His Honor Judge William Davis said he ‘maintains his innocence to this day’.

Morgan, a Category A prisoner, was appealing the Justice Department’s refusal to transfer him to a more lenient regime by downgrading his security rating.

Oddly, he insisted that even though he had killed the teenager, the crime was not sexually motivated.

But the judge told him: ‘The only reasonable inference is that the murder of Miss Figard involved a sexual element.

‘To conclude otherwise would mean admitting that she might be prepared to have consensual sexual intercourse with a 36-year-old lorry driver she has never met before.’