Levi Bellfield found guilty of killing Milly Dowler

Nine years after killing Surrey schoolgirl, former nightclub bouncer and wheel clamper Bellfield finally brought to justice Levi Bellfield, a convicted double killer, has been found guilty of kidnapping and murdering 13-year-old Milly Dowler amid emotional scenes at the Old Bailey. Immediately after the jury returned their unanimous verdict, Milly’s mother Sally broke down and had to be helped from the courtroom by her husband, Bob, as she collapsed in hysterics. Milly’s sister Gemma also became uncontrollably emotional as she left court, shouting “guilty” as medical staff were called. Their screams could be heard for several minutes as observers sat stunned. It had taken nine years for the family to get justice for Milly, with the verdict ending one of the largest police investigations of its kind. It began when she vanished off the streets of Walton-on-Thames in Surrey while walking home from school. Her unclothed remains were found six months later by mushroom pickers at Yateley Heath Woods, near Fleet, Hampshire, 25 miles away. Bellfield, who lived in a rented flat 50 yards from where Milly was last seen, had denied the charges. He showed no emotion as the guilty verdict was read out, and gave a large yawn as he was led from the dock. The jury are still deliberating on a charge of the attempted abduction of another girl, Rachel Cowles, then 11, a day before Milly vanished. Bellfield, a former nightclub doorman and wheel clamper, already has convictions for the murder of Amelie Delagrange, 22, a French student, and gap-year student Marsha McDonnell, 19, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, head girl at a convent school. Those attacks took place in the three years after Milly’s abduction and murder, which became one of Britain’s most notorious unsolved cases. The court had heard that Milly disappeared “in the blink of an eye” while walking home from school on 21 March 2002, shortly after 4pm. CCTV evidence showed she could not have walked past the entrance to the rented flat Bellfield was sharing with his girlfriend and three children. His girlfriend was house-sitting for a friend at the time. Bellfield moved his family out of the flat, in Collingwood Place, Walton, the day after Milly’s disappearance. The red Daewoo Nexia car he was driving has never been found, despite a huge police search of underwater sites and visits to more than 200 scrap merchants. None of Milly’s possessions have ever been found. The jury heard police had knocked 11 times at the door of the flat during house-to-house inquiries, but received no response, and had not checked the identity of the occupants with the landlord. A report by Rachel Cowles’s mother to police about the incident involving her daughter was not followed up at the time, with information only reaching detectives investigating Milly’s murder three years after the schoolgirl’s death. The parents of Delagrange, who was attacked as she walked home at night on Twickenham Green in 2004, were in court for the verdict, as was Sheedy, who suffered horrendous injuries after Bellfield ran her over near her house in Isleworth, west London. Bellfield became a suspect after his arrest following the murder of Delagrange in 2004. Last night, Amelie’s mother, Dominique, questioned Surrey police’s investigation into Milly’s disappearance. “It’s true there is the question that if the same thorough investigation had been carried out in the case of Milly, then Marsha [McDonnell] and Amelie [Delagrange] would still be alive. That question remains,” she told ITN. McDonnell, a gap-year student, was attacked, again with a blunt instrument, near her home in Hampton, south-west London, in February 2003. Bellfield was jailed for life for the attacks on her and Sheedy in February 2008 and was told he would never be released. The four-week trial saw Milly’s father, a 59-year-old former IT recruitment consultant, and mother, a 51-year-old maths teacher at her daughter’s Weybridge school, subjected to tough cross-examination by Bellfield’s defence. Bob Dowler suffered the humiliation of having to admit an interest in bondage sex after evidence that Milly had found a pornographic magazine, and he had to admit he had been considered a suspect. Each of her parents broke down in the witness box as it was suggested Milly may have run away because she was unhappy at home. Last night, Louise Casey, commissioner for victims and witnesses, said: “The experience that the Dowler family have endured through this legal process has been quite appalling.” Milly Dowler Crime London Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 23, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.