Networked Knowledge - Media Report

[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

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On 25 February 2008 Andrew Hough of Reuters reported “Doorman guilty of bus stop murders”.

A former nightclub doorman will be questioned over the unsolved murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler after being found guilty on Monday of beating two female students to death near bus stops in London.Another 20 attacks on women around southwest London will now also be re-examined. Levi Bellfield, 39, from west London , was convicted at the Old Bailey of the murders of French student Amelie Delagrange, 22, and of Marsha McDonnell, 19. He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, a student who suffered horrific injuries when she was deliberately run over by a car.

Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton, who led the investigation, said Bellfield was a cunning and arrogant man who carried out a "wicked series of attacks." "I am pleased the jury saw through his lies and deceit," he told reporters. Sutton told Reuters: "we are going to be looking at another 20 attacks." When the guilty verdicts were announced, Sheedy and relatives of McDonnell and Delagrange wept and embraced. The jury was sent home for the day after failing to reach a verdict on two other assault charges. Bellfield, who denied the charges, showed no reaction as the verdicts were returned. He will be sentenced on Tuesday.

Detectives now want to question him over the 2002 killing of Dowler who was 13 when she was abducted. A source close to the Bellfield case said: "We are liaising with Surrey Police. There is a possibility he could be responsible." In a statement released after the guilty verdicts were announced, Surrey Police renewed appeals for information about Dowler's death, one of Britain's most infamous unsolved murders. "Police hope people who were previously too afraid to speak are now willing to come forward with new information about Milly's killer," it said. Dowler's body was found in woods in Hampshire, six months after she disappeared from a suburban street in broad daylight in Walton on Thames as she was on her way home from school.

McDonnell had been travelling on a bus before she was attacked near her home in Hampton, Middlesex, in February 2003. Her uncle Shane McDonnell said outside court: "After nearly five months of having to endure the cowardly charade of innocence put forward by the defence, we at last get to see Levi Bellfield for what he truly is." Delagrange had just got off a bus in August 2004 before she was battered about the head with a blunt instrument. In a statement, her mother Dominique Delagrange said: ""Her loss is an open wound that will never heal." Former convent school head girl Sheedy, then 18, was run over as she walked home after getting off a bus in Isleworth following a night out in May 2004. "Both emotionally and physically, there were times when I thought I would never get better," she said outside court. "With this verdict, I can finally move on with my life."

Editing by Steve Addison, Additional reporting by Avril Ormsby and Peter Griffiths

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