Levi Bellfield jury discharged over media coverage

• Jury had been due to consider attempted abduction allegation • Judge calls Milly Dowler murderer ‘cruel and pitiless’ An Old Bailey jury has been discharged without reaching a verdict on an allegation that serial killer Levi Bellfield attempted to abduct 11-year-old Rachel Cowles the day before he snatched Milly Dowler in 2002 because of media coverage of the trial. The judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, said that publicity of the case had left him no option but to discharge the jury and refer the matter to the attorney general. There was a huge amount of publicity that should not have been put before the jury, the judge said. On Thursday the jury convicted Bellfield of Milly’s murder after snatching her as she walked home from school near his home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. They were due to continue deliberating on Friday morning on the allegation of attempting to abduct Rachel Cowles. Prosecutor Brian Altman QC told the judge a decision had yet to be taken on whether to seek a retrial on the attempted abduction charge. Bellfield, a former wheelclamper and bouncer, was on Friday jailed for life with a whole life tarrif for Milly’s abduction and murder. After killing Milly, Bellfield dumped her body 25 miles away in Yateley Heath Wood, in Hampshire. The judge said: “He robbed her of a promising life, he robbed her family and friends of the joy of seeing her grow up into a self-confident, articulate and admirable young woman. “He treated her in death with total disrespect, depositing her naked body, without even a semblance of a burial, in a wood far away from her home, vulnerable to all the forces of nature.” He added: “He is marked out as a cruel and pitiless killer. “To this is added the fact that, as on another occasion at this court, he has not had the courage to come into court to face his victims and receive his sentence.” Bellfield, who was not in court, was already in prison for murdering 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange, 22, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, in 2004. Bellfield, 43, was given three life sentences for those crimes in February 2008 and was told he would never be released. Milly Dowler Crime guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 24, 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.