Plan B Forum

Controversial paintings of a schoolboy and his ex-girlfriend, who he murdered for a bet, have been covered up at an art exhibition after the victim's mother described them as 'sick and disgusting'.

Sonia Oatley, 50, protested after pictures of her daughter's teenage killer Joshua Davies went on display at an arts and culture festival in Wales.



Another of the images at the festival appeared to show Sonia's 15-year-old daughter Rebecca with blood coming from her head.

The pictures, which have been covered up with white sheets, were on show only 10 miles from the spot where Davies bludgeoned Rebecca to death with a rock in October 2010.

Davies, now 17, was jailed last year after a court heard that he carried out the brutal killing for a bet with a schoolmate to win a full English breakfast.

The paintings, by artist David Rees Davies, went on display at the National Eisteddfod arts and culture festival in Llandow, Vale of Glamorgan.

Organisers initially resisted calls to cover them up, saying they were 'not in the business of censorship', but they relented after Mrs Oatley complained.

Mrs Oatley said: 'I feel like throwing a pot of red paint over them.

'It’s sick and disgusting that a painting like this can go on show so soon after my daughter was murdered.

'Some of Rebecca’s school friends were due to go to the exhibition - they would have been in tears if they had seen this vile picture.'

Schoolboy killer Davies had broken up with Rebecca but later lured her to woodland near his home in the village of Aberkenfig, South Wales.

He used a rock the size of a rugby ball to kill her then went home as if nothing had happened.

Rebecca’s body as found the next day after Mrs Oatley reported her missing.

The artist used Davies's police mugshot to create one of the controversial paintings.

He said it was a 'crime of passion' by a tortured young man driven mad by his girlfriend’s rejection and unrequited love.

And he wrote 'Cariad' on Davies’s forehead - the Welsh word for 'love' or 'darling'.

But the murder trial heard Davies had a 'deep-seated hatred' of Rebecca and had boasted to friends that he was plotting different ways to kill her.

Mrs Oatley, of Maesteg, Bridgend, accused the artist of ignoring the facts.

She said: 'What right has he got to say things like that because it is not true.

'It was heard in court - this was not a crime of passion it was premeditated murder.

'If the artist had said evil on Davies’s forehead then maybe I could have accepted it.

'But "Cariad" - that is totally wrong.'

The Oatley family's local MP, Huw Irranca-Davies, said: 'The original decision to exhibit these paintings has caused deep distress, and should not have happened at all.

'This has shown immense insensitivity and bad judgement dealing with a matter that is not only local but very recent and very vivid, not least for the families involved.

'The decision late in the day to cover these pictures from public view will be of scant consolation to those affected, knowing they have been on display for several days.'

The paintings form part of a series of works called 'People I know; People I used to know; and People I’d rather not know'.

Festival organisers said they were aware of the background to the work when it was chosen for the exhibition.

Joshua Davies, 16, who smashed 15-year-old Rebecca Aylward’s skull with a large rock, smirked as he was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years.

Not long enough. I hope he gets gang raped in the showers every day of his sentence, and gets run down by a bus on the day he's released. After which he lingers in painful agony for several weeks before finally croaking by choking to death on his own vomit.

dales wrote:How come UK prison terms are so weak?

[...]her daughter's teenage killer Joshua Davies[...]

The paintings, by artist David Rees Davies[...]

The paintings form part of a series of works called 'People I know; People I used to know; and People I’d rather not know'.