POLICE attended the scene of the fire at around 8am on February 5 after Miss Grender’s body was found.

Detective Supt Steve Mogg – the on-call senior investigating officer that weekend – said initially they kept an open mind in the investigation carrying out house-to-house inquiries and taking witness statements and called out the Home Office pathologist.

He said: “Later that day, the pathologist confirmed that we were dealing with a homicide investigation, as there were two distinct stab wounds to Nikitta. This was a very serious murder investigation involving not just Nikitta, but the death of an unborn child.”

Once it was clear Miss Grender had been murdered, Gwent Police’s major incident team took control of the investigation, with Detective Chief Supt Geoff Ronayne taking the lead.

He said: “One of the major problems with this investigation was the fire and the forensic issues and the challenges that they then presented.

We had a scene that was extensively damaged and the forensic evidence had been destroyed as a consequence.”

As the inquiry involved a lot of the young people in the community, Det Chief Supt Ronayne said piecing together their movements posed problems. He said the use of social media was a problem and continued to be a problem throughout the trial.

“The media coverage was quite rightly high profile and that generated a considerable amount of social media. The defence raised concerns with Gwent Police that might affect a fair trial.

“We worked with the defence and closed down or requested the closure of 12 sites and will take action against those found to be promoting them,” he added.

During the course of the investigation, police took 696 witness statements, viewed hundreds of hours of CCTV, including 300 discs of CCTV while trying to track Whant’s movements on the night of Miss Grender’s murder, and seized more than 2,012 forensic exhibits.

More than 1,000 members of staff worked on the inquiry and Whant was interviewed 26 times between February 9 and 12, when he was charged.