'Off the scale of evil': Anger of detective who snared Levi Bellfield as serial killer to marry girlfriend in prison
16 June 2023, 11:28 | Updated: 16 June 2023, 11:30
The detective who snared Levi Bellfield has called for a change in the law to stop the ‘abuse’ of women by serving prisoners after the serial killer was granted his wish to get married in jail.
Monster Bellfield, 55, threatened legal action to tie the knot with a besotted admirer, citing discrimination - before getting £30,000 legal aid to help him argue his case.
He is serving two whole life orders for killing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange, as well as the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy.
DCI Colin Sutton, who cracked the case with a dedicated team of Scotland Yard officers, told LBC this morning the killer was “off the scale” of evil.
“The law is worse than an ass in this case. I’ve seen nobody who supports this notion that this man should be able to inveigle his way into somebody else’s life and ruin it.
“It’s ridiculous. It goes against common sense. It goes against decency.
“We know from the investigation we mounted that this man ruined dozens of lives of women. He has controlled, coerced, beaten every woman that has entered his life.
“Thankfully he’s locked up, but he still manages to control people from behind bars.
“When you put somebody like him away… the most important thing is we knew we were saving scores of women in the future. It’s just plain ridiculous.”
He recalled Bellfield making a girlfriend flush the toilet so he could listen - to prove that she wasn’t seeing anyone else.
He said the decision to let him wed is “a travesty of common sense and of justice.”
“When he was on remand I listened to Levi Bellfield order his teenage girlfriend to hold her phone over her flushing toilet - so he could recognise the noise and thus believe her that she was at home, rather than out with another man. She complied.
"It s a travesty of common sense and of justice that he is now to be allowed to marry and begin to exert this sort of control over another woman.
“The law must be changed to prevent this kind of abuse of women being dished out from a prison cell. Immediately.”
Levi Bellfield 'off the scale of evil'
The sick killer threatened legal action if prison chiefs continued to block his attempts to marry his girlfriend, with whom he is reportedly "besotted", The Sun reports.
He claimed to have been the victim of discrimination after officers banned him from wearing an engagement ring.
Bellfield won his legal aid, which reportedly cost around £30,000.
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Bellfield's legal victory has sparked fury, with many considering it an insult to his victims.
Former Metropolitan Police officer Michael Hames told the publication: "This is ridiculous and wrong on many levels.
"How can human rights be used to justify this when he took away the human rights of innocent girls and women?
"This makes a nonsense of the law, and the sooner it is changed the better."
The government had previously promised to consider changing the law to stop the likes of Bellfield marrying while behind bars.
He told LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast in March: "Let me just be crystal clear with you, Nick – I don’t think it is appropriate and I’m going to change the law.
“But I also think there’s a question around the risk to anyone that would marry an offender as egregious as in this case Levi Bellfield.
“What we’re protectively do to make sure vulnerable people aren’t subject to that element of risk.“So on both factors, I’m committed to doing what we can to prevent that taking place."
Dominic Raab hits he will try and stop the prison marriage of serial killer and rapist
With Mr Raab being forced to resign following bullying allegations, there appears to be no imminent plans to change the law to prevent Bellfield's marriage.
One government source said: |The sad fact is that — with the way the law stands — there are no grounds to stop him getting married.
"So it will go ahead and they are deciding when to tell Bellfield they are approving the decision.“It sticks in the craw — but at least it would avoid it going to court."
