Murder of Louise Smith of Yate Bristol 1995 Louise, aged 18, was reported missing after she visited a nightclub on Christmas Eve at Yate, near Bristol, with friends in 1995. More than 10,000 local people took part in a search, but it was not until February 1996 that two boys found her body dumped in a quarry. Gillian Smith's daughter was murdered in the early hours of Christmas Day, over 10 years ago. She had turned down the offer of a shared taxi ride, deciding to walk the short distance home after going to a disco in Yate, near Bristol. Her naked body was discovered two months later, covered with branches in a quarry. Two years later, David Frost, 22, a Surrey university civil engineering student, pleaded guilty to killing 18-year-old Miss Smith. He was trapped by house-to-house inquiries and one of the largest DNA screenings ever undertaken by a police force at the time. A total of 4,500 DNA tests were carried out during a £1.5 million investigation by Avon and Somerset police. After Frost was jailed, Miss Smith's parents campaigned to have the Criminal Justice and Police Act amended so that police could retain DNA samples collected during their investigations, with the person's permission, to create a database. Mrs Smith, 58, and her husband Robert, 59, were horrified to learn that DNA collected during the hunt for their daughter's killer had to be destroyed once Frost had been convicted. They were awarded MBEs for their work to change the law, although Mrs Smith remains modest about what they achieved. 'It just seemed such an anomaly,' she said. 'It seemed such a waste of time for the police to go to all that effort only to have all the samples destroyed. 'So we started collecting signatures for a petition and went to the House of Commons. It gave us something to do and got us through another year. 'We were shocked to get the MBEs. I kept reading the letter and not believing it. My granddaughter took the MBEs to school and said that we had made the world a safer place. I don't suppose we thought about it in that way. 'But I kept thinking that we shouldn't be getting them. That Louise should still be alive.' During the investigation into Miss Smith's murder, police established that Frost had been visiting his parents in the Yate area over Christmas. He later told police he would make himself available for swabs for DNA comparison. But he left for South Africa, where he was doing work experience with a civil engineering firm, before doing so. He eventually agreed to give a saliva swab to police there and when it proved positive, British detectives flew out to South Africa to persuade Frost to return to England. He was arrested on his arrival at Heathrow. Initially he told police that he had left Miss Smith, a clerk, to walk home after having consensual sex and that someone else must have killed her. But, in his sixth interview, he said: 'I would like, hopefully, to conduct this more honourably. I think everybody has suffered enough. I would like to say that I think I did rape Louise and was responsible for her death.' Frost still denied murder and said that the death of Miss Smith had been unintentional. But at the last minute he changed his plea to guilty of murder. A charge of rape was allowed to lie on the file. Mr and Mrs Smith are still traumatised by the events of 10 years ago. Mrs Smith did not work for seven years, although she has recently returned to work for Tesco. She is gradually coming off anti-depressants. 'You never get over it.' she said. 'Christmas is the worst. We just try to get through it. We have a granddaughter now so we have to go through the motions but I would rather just forget the whole thing. It is not something we can celebrate. 'I see my friends going shopping with their daughters. I will never have that. Frost has destroyed everything. Yet he will come out of prison and have a life. We won't.' Huge search At one point around 10,000 people joined the hunt for the teenager, one of the biggest searches ever launched by police in the UK. On February 17, 1996, two schoolboys were playing at the Barnhill quarry when they discovered Louise's body. Police took semen samples from her body which gave them the lead to the murderer. Frost, who had been staying with his parents in Yate over Christmas, was one of 4,500 men approached to take a DNA test. He agreed to a test but left for a job in South Africa before it could be carried out. A former student who admitted murdering a Bristol teenager as she walked home from a Christmas Eve party has been jailed for life after police used DNA evidence to track him down. David Frost, 22, pleaded guilty to murdering 18-year-old Louise Smith and dumping her naked body in a quarry near her home on Christmas Day 1995. The Crown accepted a further plea of not guilty to rape. He had told police during interviews he had sex with the teenager and strangled her in panic when she had begun to cry. Louise's body lay undiscovered for seven weeks while friends and neighbours joined police in a massive hunt after she disappeared in Yate, near Bristol, early on Christmas Day, 1995. Prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court, Alan Jenkins QC, said Louise was last seen seen walking home from Spirals nightclub after a night out with friends. DNA match Working with the South African authorities, the police gained a swab from Frost and matched him to the DNA found on Louise Smith's body. Det Insp Chris Farrell, leading the investigation, interviewed Frost in South Africa and the 22-year-old agreed to return to the UK, where he was arrested. During police interviews, Frost admitted having sex with the teenager but claimed he had left her soon afterwards. But by his fifth interview, he told officers: 'I think everyone has suffered enough. I would like to say I think I did rape Louise and I was responsible for her death, both on Christmas Day.' Mr Justice Bell, passing sentence, told Frost: 'It was an evil thing that you did in the early hours of Christmas Day two years ago - taking the life of Louise Smith. There is only one sentence for murder and that is life imprisonment.' The parents of Louise Smith, who was murdered three years ago, are calling for the government to change the law on the destruction of DNA samples collected during investigations. The issue was raised in the House of Commons by Liberal Democrat MP Steve Webb. He argued that thanks to DNA, Louise's killer was caught and convicted. The 4,500 samples collected in Louise's case might have been useful for future investigations had they not been discarded. Costly investigation The murder investigation was one of the largest of its kind carried out by Avon and Somerset Police and cost more than £1m. Adressing MPs in the Commons, Mr Webb said it cost £37.50 to analyse a DNA sample and £41 after fingerprints were taken, screening and photographs. This meant the cost of taking the 4,500 DNA samples came to between £200,000 and £250,000. Mr Webb said that Louise's parents were 'dismayed' that all these costly samples were simply destroyed. He urged the government to amend the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to allow for the samples to be retained for future investigations. Civil rights concern In reponse, the Home Office minister Paul Boateng said: 'I very much take the view that DNA technology is a vital intelligence tool that we want to see at the disposal of our police service.' But he said that under current laws, DNA samples had to be destroyed if an individual involved in a mass screening was subsequently eliminated from an inquiry. During murder inquiries, samples were placed on a dedicated database, separate from the national database, but were also destroyed if they were later found not to be linked with the crime. He acknowleged that the screening during the Louise Smith inquiry was the largest ever undertaken, and he could therefore understand her family's desire to save public time and money. 'The voluntary retention of DNA profiles on a separate database is under consideration,' he said. But he argued that it was important to maintain civil liberties.