SERIAL KILLER LEVI BELLFIELD ( 2008 )

Bus-stop killer delivers final insult to victims' families as judge tells him: 'You'll die in jail'

By DAN NEWLING
27 February 2008

 

 

Levi Bellfield refused to come to court to be sentenced because of the 'bad publicity' after his convictions

Levi Bellfield will spend the rest of his life in jail, a judge has ruled - but the hammer killer was not there to hear his sentence.
He refused to appear in the dock at the Old Bailey because he was upset at being named as the prime suspect for the murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler.
His non-appearance drew nothing but contempt from his victims' families, who criticised his cowardice.
Bellfield, 39, will die behind bars after the judge, Mrs Justice Rafferty, said he must serve the maximum "whole life" tariff.
The former wheelclamper killed 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell in 2003 and Amelie Delagrange, 22, the following year by hitting them over the head with a hammer.
The sexual predator also attempted to kill 18-year-old Kate Sheedy by running her over.
He is the prime suspect in the abduction and murder of 13-yearold Milly, who vanished on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in 2002.
Yesterday, addressing an empty dock, Mrs Justice Rafferty told Bellfield: "You have reduced three families to unimagined grief. What dreadful feelings went through your head as you attacked and in two cases snuffed out a young life is beyond understanding."
Amelie's father Jean-Francois said of Bellfield's non-appearance: "It is just another show of his cowardice. He was cowardly in his attacks, and a coward today."
Miss Sheedy, now 21, said: "I think that shows the kind of person he was - a complete coward."
Also watching the sentencing was one of Bellfield's first victims, Jesse Wilson. She was 17 when he struck her with a hammer yards from her home in Strawberry Hill, South-West London, in January 2003.
Though he has never been charged, detectives are convinced Bellfield is responsible and are preparing to re-investigate.
 

 

Victim Kate Sheedy gives a thumbs up after Bellfield is told he will die in jail, but she branded him a coward for refusing to attend the sentencing

 

Jesse, who was left for dead, has since recovered enough to complete a BA but is still having medical treatment on her jaw.
Detectives have linked Bellfield to at least 20 more attacks, including three murders.
They are convinced he abducted and killed Milly as she walked past his flat in Walton-on-Thames in March 2002.
Surrey Police have renewed appeals over a red Daewoo Nexia, registration N503 GLT, driven by Bellfield at the time of Milly's abduction. Its chassis number is KLATF68V1SB554108 and has never been recovered.
In a rare move, the judge singled out Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton for his team's "determination and skill" in bringing Bellfield to justice - prompting the court to break into applause.
Kate Sheedy branded Bellfield a coward for refusing to appear to hear his fate.
Although jubilant at the sentence, the former convent school head girl said outside court: "I am disappointed that he wasn't here to hear the judge's words, which were so strong.
 

 

Bellfield was described in court as a predator who stalked bus stops looking for likely victims. He had a particular animosity towards women with blonde hair

"I think that shows the kind of person he was - a complete coward.
"It means so much to me that he got life for my attempted murder, as well as the murders of Marsha and Amelie.
"It's what I wanted. To know he is never going to see the light of day again is brilliant and a relief."
She added: "Even if it were 40 years time, I would not have felt safe if he had been let out on the streets again.
"He now has the rest of his days to think about what he has done."
Impact statements given to the judge spoke of the pain and suffering of Bellfield's victims and their families.
The judge said: "The statements I have read and the words the court heard this morning were hard for many an experienced professional to bear."
Miss McDonnell's uncle, Shane, said: "Marsha's murder was an act of pure evil, an innocent girl attacked from behind with no motive, no reason and no justification.
"Losing a child in any circumstances is always an extremely hard loss to bear.
"To lose a child to such a barbaric act of violence that has no reason or explanation just compounds that grief further."
Dominique Delagrange also spoke of the pain of losing her daughter, Amelie.
"Our world fell apart on the August 19, 2004. It will always hurt us not to know what would have become of Amelie had her life not been severed in such a way.
"Her loss is an open wound that will never heal. We shall never get over it."

Click here to read the families' full impact statements

Earlier it was revealed that a series of appalling police blunders could let bus-stop killer Levi Bellfield cheat justice for the murder of Milly Dowler.
The 39-year-old thug, who was today given a "whole life" jail term at the Old Bailey, murdered two young women and attempted to kill another.
Police believe Bellfield, who had a pathological hatred of blonde women, is also responsible for killing 13-year-old Milly.
 

 

Attacked: Amelie Delagrange, left, and Marsha McDonnell were killed by Bellfield

He lived only yards from where she was last seen in Surrey and might even have known her. Incredibly, police knocked on his door ten times, failed to get a reply and gave up.
They ignored his attempts to target two other young girls in the weeks before Milly disappeared plus the failure to identify a red car he drove, captured on CCTV the day she vanished.
And, in the two years before Milly's abduction, he was also reported a staggering 93 times to police for alleged indecent assaults, physical attacks and obscene phone calls.
These missed opportunities left the serial killer free to hunt down other victims.
He bludgeoned to death 22-year-old French shop assistant Amelie Delagrange and gap-year student Marsha McDonnell, 19.
And he tried to kill Miss Sheedy, then 18, by driving into her then reversing his car over her body.
Because of the failures to gather information which plagued the start of the Milly case, a file naming Bellfield as the killer has already been rejected by the Crown Prosecution Service and police fear it will never reach court.

 

Jesse Wilson: One of Levi Bellfield's first vctims

But following yesterday's revelation that he was the prime suspect in Milly's murder, they have received a flood of calls from members of the public.
More than 20 people phoned a police hotline last night, some with information on the convicted killer's whereabouts around the time of the schoolgirl's disappearance.
Callers included former friends and associates of the murderer, who in a statement through his lawyer has today denied killing Milly.
Detective Chief Inspector Maria Woodall, who is leading the Milly inquiry, said: "We have had more than 20 calls from the public, a number of which have the potential to be significant.
"We still need to find the red Daewoo car seen leaving the area shortly after Milly disappeared."
Surrey Police have released the vehicle registration - N503 GLT - and its chassis number to help job people's memory in the hope of tracing the vehicle.
It has also emerged that Bellfield told his girlfriend of the time during a police appeal about Milly: "You never know, I could be the killer, I might be famous one day."
Prison sources said last night that Bellfield, a club bouncer and wheel clamper, had also confessed to the murder of an unnamed prostitute in Manchester.
In recent weeks he has been kept in Belmarsh jail, South London, in an adjoining cell to Mark Dixie, the killer of Sally Anne Bowman.
Prison sources said the pair had been coaching each other over what to say in court.

Other astonishing facts to emerge about Bellfield include:

• Scotland Yard will now investigate 20 unsolved attacks across Britain

• These include the murder of Bellfield's 14-year-old friend Patsy Morris, who was strangled in 1980 when Bellfield was just 12, and Judith Gold, killed on Hampstead Heath in 1990

• Up to six teenage girls have come forward to claim he drugged and raped them

Bellfield, a Romany gypsy from West Drayton, West London, is said to have gained sadistic pleasure from extreme violence against women who rejected his advances.
Milly's parents said they will never find peace until her killer is brought to justice.
Bob and Sally Dowler said in a statement that the murder of their "beautiful, vivacious, kind-natured" daughter had destroyed their lives.
Bellfield was finally tracked down after Amelie was bludgeoned to death on Twickenham Green, South West London, in August 2004.
Miss Delagrange was walking along a bus route after missing her stop when she was attacked and detectives linked the attack with the bus stop killing of Marsha McDonnell, 18 months earlier.

Murder squad officers trawled through more than 2,000 hours of CCTV images to find the damning images of Bellfield's white Ford Courier van as he stalked Amelie.

But it was a call into the police incident room by one of Bellfield's ex-partners which finally led to the psychopathic doorman.

Metropolitan police officers who have worked on the case for almost four years were visibly moved at the verdict and shed tears outside the courtroom.
The families of the victims criticised Bellfield for his arrogance in court when the judge and jury were not there.

Dominique Delagrange accused the killer of "making gestures, winking at us, mouthing obscenities and deliberately yawning" during evidence.

During the trial, the jury heard how Bellfield trawled bus stops and followed buses late at night looking for young blondes on their own.
If they turned him down, he reacted with rage.

Within minutes of Bellfield's conviction, Surrey Police renewed their appeals on the Milly case and offered a £50,000 reward.
Anyone with information about her death should call the investigation team on 01483 637637.

Why couldn't they make him?

Under English common law criminal trial defendants cannot be compelled to appear in court if they do not want to, so long as a lawyer is present to represent their interests.
This is because if they are forced to appear, there is a danger they may disrupt the dignity of the court.
Levi Bellfield exercised his right not to appear in court yesterday, choosing instead to remain in the cells beneath the Old Bailey courtroom.
Bellfield's barrister, William Boyce, QC, explained that his client chose not to appear because of the "quite extraordinary explosion of bad publicity" which followed his conviction on Monday.
In 2006, professional hitman Gary Nelson failed to appear at the Old Bailey for large portions of his trial for murdering police officer Patrick Dunne.