It is believed that Hughes had lifted Sophie, still asleep in her sleeping bag, from the tent at some time in the early hours of 30 July. Her naked body was found washed up on the beach half a mile away at Llandudno at 7.10 a.m. on 30 July 1995 by a local man walking his dog. Examination by Home Office pathologist Dr Donald Waite revealed that she had been subjected to an attack involving "considerable force" which had resulted in her right upper arm and ankle being broken, her body being covered with bruises "consistent with the gripping of the child by hand" and bruising around her head and face was consistent with punching or slapping. She had suffered internal bleeding, and had been violently raped and sodomised. The majority of her injuries were comparable to those normally suffered by people killed or seriously injured in major car crashes. All of the injuries were sustained while she was still alive. Dr Waite said that during the attack she had been in so much pain that she left teeth marks on both sides of her tongue and inside her lower lip. Death was caused by manual strangulation, lasting up to three minutes, after which her body had been thrown into the sea — probably an effort by her killer to wash away forensic evidence — near a cliff called the Little Orme at the eastern end of Llandudno's promenade. Her clothes — a distinctive pink and white Winnie-the-Pooh nightdress, knickers and a pair of Marks & Spencer socks embossed with pink flowers — were not found at the time.