Levi Bellfield is serving two whole life orders, the most severe sentence an English court can impose, for the murders of two young women and a schoolgirl. In February 2008 an Old Bailey jury convicted him of murdering Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, who were each attacked after getting off a bus in south-west London, and of attempting to murder Kate Sheedy, 18, who was run down as she walked home from a bus stop and survived. In June 2011 a second jury convicted him of kidnapping and murdering Milly Dowler, 13, who disappeared on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in March 2002.
The Milly Dowler case was one of the largest murder investigations in Britain, and it remained unsolved for years while Bellfield lived and worked a few miles away. He was a former nightclub doorman who ran a wheel-clamping business. When he was finally tried for her death, the trial itself became a public controversy, and within weeks it emerged that a national newspaper had hacked the missing girl's phone. Since his convictions he has made a series of claims about other crimes, some of which police have investigated and rejected.
Bellfield was born in Isleworth, in west London, and was raised in west London by his mother, ITV News reported in 2016. Little else about his childhood is on record. By the time of his first trial he was described in court reports as a former nightclub doorman and a wheel-clamper from West Drayton, Middlesex. ITV described him as more than six feet tall.
He had a number of partners, often at the same time, and he is said to have fathered at least 11 children by five women, according to ITV. Former partners gave evidence about his conduct at both of his trials. One described him to police as violent toward her. In court in 2008 the prosecutor, Brian Altman, told the jury that Bellfield hated women, and blonde women in particular. Reports of the trial said he looked for young women who were alone late at night, watched bus stops and followed buses, offered lifts, and reacted with rage when he was turned down.
The details of his wheel-clamping work mattered to the inquiries that followed. It gave him access to a changing series of cars and vans, and much of the evidence against him at both trials concerned vehicles: which ones he had been using, where they were seen on camera, and what happened to them afterward.
Amanda Dowler, known to everyone as Milly, was 13 and a pupil at Heathside School in Weybridge, Surrey. Her mother, Sally, was a teacher; her father, Bob, worked in IT; she had a sister, Gemma. On Thursday, March 21, 2002, she spent an ordinary day at school, finished her artwork at lunchtime, and told her mother she would take the train home instead of accepting a lift. Security cameras showed her leaving school, going through the ticket barriers at Weybridge station and down to the platform.
She usually got off at a different station, but that afternoon she left the train one stop early, at Walton-on-Thames, to spend time with friends in the station café, where she ate chips. At 3:47 p.m. she phoned her father and told him she would be home in half an hour. A friend of her sister saw her 18 minutes later, walking along Station Avenue. She never arrived home. Her parents reported her missing that evening.
Surrey Police opened the inquiry it called Operation Ruby. Fifty officers and dog teams searched the area in the first days. Her parents made public appeals. A national newspaper offered a reward of 100,000 pounds in May 2002, and three men were arrested separately between May and July 2002 and released. In the years that followed, Surrey Police checked 54 people as possible suspects, among them her father, who was cleared; the force later apologized to the family for missed opportunities in the investigation.
On September 18, 2002, mushroom pickers found her remains in Yateley Heath Woods, near Fleet in Hampshire, about 25 miles from Walton. She was identified from dental records. Her body had decomposed to the point that the cause of death could not be determined, and it never has been. Her purse, rucksack and mobile phone have never been recovered.
On October 8, 2002, a memorial service at Guildford Cathedral marked the launch of Milly's Fund, a child safety charity set up by her family. Her funeral was held in Walton on March 21, 2003, a year to the day after she disappeared. Surrey Police offered a reward of 50,000 pounds five days later. In April 2003 a woman was jailed for five months for posing as Milly in calls to her parents, her school and the police.
What no one knew at the time was that the man who had taken her had been living a few yards from where she was last seen. Bellfield, his partner and their two children were renting a ground-floor flat close to Station Avenue, about 50 yards from the spot where Milly vanished. Channel 4 News reported in 2011 that police knocked on the door of that flat 11 times in the course of their inquiries but did not try to trace the occupant through the letting agent, and that he moved his family out the day after Milly disappeared. He was not a suspect in her case until the Metropolitan Police arrested him in November 2004 for other crimes.
Marsha McDonnell was 19 and lived in Hampton, in south-west London. On the night of February 4, 2003, she took a bus home and got off near her home. She was struck on the head from behind, three times, with a hammer. She died on February 5.
Her family would wait five years to see anyone convicted. When Bellfield was finally convicted of Milly Dowler's murder in 2011, Marsha's uncle, Shane McDonnell, called for an inquiry into why Bellfield had not been arrested for Milly's murder sooner, arguing that basic procedures needed to be checked.
Kate Sheedy was 18, a former head girl at a convent school, and she lived in Isleworth. On May 28, 2004, after a night out, she got off a bus and began walking home. She realized she was being followed by a vehicle and crossed the road to avoid it. The driver drove at her, ran her over, and reversed back over her. She survived with severe injuries.
She gave evidence against Bellfield at his trial. Sentencing him in 2008, the judge said that Kate Sheedy had been put through "indignity after indignity" in the witness box during cross-examination. After the verdicts, by then a 21-year-old university student, she said: "The fact that Bellfield has been found guilty means more to me than I can possibly say."
Amelie Delagrange was 22, a French exchange student who lived near Twickenham Green. On the evening of August 19, 2004, she was on a bus home and got off at the wrong stop. She set off on foot toward Twickenham Green. Prosecutors said Bellfield followed her and tried to pick her up, and when she refused he struck her on the head with a heavy instrument, possibly a hammer, on the green. She died of her injuries.
Her parents and sister came to Twickenham Green and left flowers and a card. Her father wrote, in French, that she would always stay alive in his heart and called her "my little darling Lili." Her mother wrote that she must now live without her. Her sister wrote that Amelie had found the happiness she was looking for in the area, and that someone had taken it from her. In the first days after her death, detectives said they had not ruled out a serial attacker, and they were examining possible links with four other attacks in the area, including the murder of Marsha McDonnell the year before.
After the verdicts in 2008, her mother, Dominique Delagrange, said Bellfield had shown an unbelievable level of arrogance.
The Metropolitan Police inquiry into Amelie Delagrange's death was led by Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton. It appealed for information about a white van with distinctive markings that was connected to the attack on Twickenham Green. He was arrested in November 2004, after that appeal. Reports in 2016 described how, while under police surveillance before the arrest, he was seen making sexually suggestive remarks to two schoolgirls at a bus stop; the judge later kept that incident from the jury as too prejudicial.
He was charged with the murders of Amelie Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell and the attempted murders of Kate Sheedy and Irma Dragoshi, and with the kidnapping of a 17-year-old, A.R. He was held in custody awaiting trial.
Surrey Police, still investigating Milly Dowler's disappearance, now had a man who had lived beside the place she vanished. In March 2005 the force appealed for information about a red Daewoo Nexia seen on camera in Station Avenue on the afternoon of March 21, 2002. On July 6, 2005, while he was awaiting trial for the London attacks, Surrey officers arrested Bellfield on suspicion of killing Milly. He was not charged with her murder then.
The trial of the bus-stop charges took place at the Central Criminal Court in London. Bellfield denied all the charges. The prosecutor, Brian Altman, told the jury he hated women. The case turned in large part on vehicles and on camera footage, and on evidence from Bellfield's former partners. Kate Sheedy gave evidence, and Bellfield contested every charge; the judge later said he had taken every possible point, however weak.
The jury deliberated for six days. On Monday, February 25, 2008, it returned its verdicts:
Murder of Amelie Delagrange: guilty, unanimously.
Murder of Marsha McDonnell: guilty, by a majority of 10 to 2.
Attempted murder of Kate Sheedy: guilty, by a majority of 10 to 2.
Attempted murder of Irma Dragoshi, a hairdresser who suffered head injuries: no verdict; the jury could not agree.
Kidnapping of A.R., 17: no verdict; the jury could not agree.
Bellfield was 39. Families and supporters in the public gallery held hands and wept as the verdicts were read. The Press Association report of the verdicts said prosecutors would not seek a retrial; no later trial on either of the two undecided counts was reported. A High Court judgment in 2012 confirmed that the earlier jury had failed to agree on the count concerning A.R. Neither count is a conviction.
Bellfield refused to come to court for sentencing the next day, February 26, 2008. His lawyer, William Boyce, said he was staying away because of publicity about his conviction, including allegations he denied, and because he was upset at being linked to other crimes. Mrs Justice Rafferty heard statements from the families of the two women who had died, said they had been hard to listen to, and imposed a whole life order, which meant he would never be considered for parole. "You have reduced three families to unimagined grief," she said. She said his motives were beyond understanding. She criticized his decision to contest the charges, which had made the families wait and made Kate Sheedy relive the attack in the witness box, and she praised the jurors as "twelve sensible individuals" who had seen through his defenses. Relatives and friends of the victims called out "yes" and applauded.
Reports differ in how they describe the sentence: Reuters said he received a whole life sentence for each of the two murders and for the attempted murder, while other reports said a whole life sentence. All agree that he was told he would never be released.
On the same day the verdicts came in, police said they were looking at Bellfield's possible role in about 20 other attacks on women, and Surrey Police said they would interview him about Milly Dowler. The force renewed its appeal for information, publicly identified Bellfield as a prime suspect in her case, and released the registration and chassis numbers of the red Daewoo Nexia.
Surrey Police spent the next 18 months building a file. They tried to find the Daewoo, which had never been traced. In March 2008 a 34-year-old man from Hounslow was arrested and questioned about the car. In August 2009 a 40-year-old west London man went to Staines police station and was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, and questioned about the Daewoo; he was re-arrested in October 2009 over the possible disposal of the car and released on bail. In October 2009 police divers searched Boyer's Lake near Heathrow and found six cars, none of them significant to the case. No charge against any of these men in connection with Milly's murder was reported.
On August 26, 2009, Surrey Police sent an evidence file naming Bellfield as the prime suspect to the Crown Prosecution Service. In March 2010 he was charged with Milly Dowler's kidnapping and murder, and with attempting to kidnap an 11-year-old girl in Shepperton on March 20, 2002, the day before Milly disappeared. He first appeared to face the charges by video link from prison on April 13, 2010.
The trial opened at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Wilkie in May 2011, with Brian Altman again prosecuting and Jeffrey Samuels defending. Bellfield was 42 and denied all the charges. Before the trial, the judge ruled that the jury could hear about his 2008 convictions as evidence of bad character, but he excluded evidence of Bellfield's interest in schoolgirls in uniform as too prejudicial, and he excluded statements from A.R. about the count on which the first jury had failed to agree.
Opening the case on May 10, Altman described how Milly had been "gone in the blink of an eye" within moments of leaving the station. He told the jury that within 22 minutes of her disappearance, a camera recorded the red Daewoo Nexia that Bellfield was using on the access road to his flats and then continuing along the road near the station. He said there was "no doubt" Bellfield was responsible for both the abduction and the earlier attempt, and called him "a predatory and violent offender towards women."
The attempted kidnapping charge concerned an 11-year-old girl walking in Shepperton on March 20, 2002. The prosecution said a man in a small red car, who resembled Bellfield, approached her, said he had just moved in next door and offered her a lift; she refused, and a passing police car may have caused him to drive off.
On May 12 the jurors were taken to Walton, with Bellfield present, to see Station Avenue and the railway station, and then by coach to the road in Shepperton where the girl was approached.
A former partner gave evidence that, the night after Milly disappeared, Bellfield destroyed his bed sheets. She said that when she asked him why he had not answered his phone that day, he made a joke of it and said, "What, do you think I've done Milly?" Eight days after the disappearance, the court heard, he told her the red Daewoo had been stolen. Police never found it.
The defense case was that Milly might have run away or harmed herself because she was unhappy, and in pursuing it the defense examined the family's private life in detail. Milly's parents gave evidence on May 16 and 17 and broke down in the witness box; her sister did too. The defense also put Milly's private thoughts before the court. Bellfield himself declined to give evidence, on June 16.
In his closing speech on June 20, Samuels told the jury the prosecution case was "pure fantasy." He argued that the evidence had been fitted to Bellfield after his arrest and his conviction for the two London murders, that almost all of it had been available before he was ever prosecuted for Milly's death, and that without the earlier convictions he would not have been on trial. Police, he said, were no closer to solving the case than they had been in 2002, and Bellfield, with nothing to lose, had given them a way out. He also argued that the prosecution case required a 13-year-old to be persuaded by a stranger to cross the road, against everything she had been taught.
The jury retired at 12:41 p.m. on June 22, 2011. At 2:30 p.m. the next day, June 23, it found Bellfield guilty of kidnapping and murdering Milly Dowler. Milly's mother and sister collapsed in court; Gemma Dowler screamed, and Sally Dowler was helped from the court. The jury went on deliberating on the attempted kidnapping count.
That evening and the next morning, the case filled the broadcast news and the newspapers. On the morning of June 24, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror published long articles about Bellfield's background. Defense counsel applied for the jury to be discharged from the remaining count, citing what they called an "avalanche of publicity adverse to the defendant." The judge agreed and discharged the jury. It was announced shortly after 1 p.m. that there would be no retrial. The attempted kidnapping charge therefore ended without any verdict.
Bellfield again refused to come to court to be sentenced. On June 24, 2011, Mr Justice Wilkie imposed a whole life order and said he would never be released. He called Bellfield a "cruel and pitiless killer," said Milly had been targeted because she "was in the wrong place at the wrong time," and said Bellfield had "not had the courage" to come to court. The "most cruel of all" of his actions, the judge said, was his attempt to shift the blame by having his lawyers expose Milly's private thoughts in court. Bellfield was thought to be the first person ever given a second whole life order.
Outside the court, Sally Dowler said the trial had been extremely painful, criticized how far the system went to protect Bellfield's rights, and said she hoped his life in prison would be miserable. Bob Dowler said the family had paid too high a price for the conviction: the trial had made them relive the emotions of nine years before, and he and his wife had felt as though they were on trial themselves.
Within weeks of the verdict, in July 2011, it was widely reported that the News of the World had hacked Milly's mobile phone while she was missing. Messages from her family were intercepted, and some were deleted, which gave her parents false hope that she was alive. The Metropolitan Police inquiry into phone hacking, Operation Weeting, found evidence that her phone may have been hacked by a journalist from the paper in 2002. The revelations caused public outrage and contributed to the closure of the paper. The Dowler family later received 2 million pounds from News International and a further 1 million pounds from Rupert Murdoch, which they gave to six charities, ITV News reported.
The question then turned to Surrey Police. The chief constable, Mark Rowley, set up Operation Baronet to establish what the force had been told about the hacking in 2002, why it had done nothing, and who knew. The case was then examined by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which reported on April 24, 2013. It found that officers at all levels of the 2002 investigation knew an allegation had been made against the News of the World, and that none had acted on it. Deborah Glass, the commission's deputy chair, said there was no doubt Surrey Police had known and failed to investigate. "Phone hacking was a crime and this should have been acted upon, if not in 2002, then later," she said, and she described senior officers as suffering from "collective amnesia" about the events of 2002. The commission found no case to answer for misconduct against the two officers whose roles it examined, and Surrey Police said both had been given words of advice. The force had apologized to the Dowler family, and the commission said it was right to do so.
In July 2012 the High Court ruled on the newspapers that had published on the morning of June 24, 2011. In Attorney General v Associated Newspapers Ltd and MGN Ltd, the court found that the articles in the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror went far beyond anything the jury had heard, that there had been a real risk the jurors would apply that material to the remaining count, and that each publication created a substantial risk of serious prejudice. It found both papers in contempt under the strict liability rule. The court added that if the jury had not been discharged, there would have been a seriously arguable point that any conviction on the remaining count was unsafe. The girl at the center of that count, by then a young woman, said she was hurt and angry that the charge would never be resolved.
Bellfield sought permission to appeal against his conviction for Milly Dowler's murder. His single ground was that the trial judge should not have let the jury hear about his previous convictions; his counsel argued that without them the prosecution case was "a very weak one." In February 2012 the Court of Appeal, with the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, sitting with Mr Justice Wyn Williams and Mr Justice Maddison, refused permission. Lord Judge said the court had reached a "clear conclusion" that there was no basis for finding the trial judge's decision wrong, that the jury would have been misled if it had been kept ignorant of the earlier convictions, and that even without them there was "ample" evidence on which the jury could decide whether Bellfield had killed Milly. The phone hacking was mentioned at the hearing but formed no part of the application; Lord Judge said no fresh evidence merited the court's attention.
At the time of the Dowler verdict, Bellfield was held at Wakefield prison, where he spent most of the day locked in his cell. In 2009 he was attacked by another prisoner, and in April 2014 he was awarded 4,500 pounds in compensation; the Ministry of Justice said it was "hugely disappointed" with the ruling. By 2016 he had converted to Islam and called himself Yusuf Rahim.
By 2022 he was held at HMP Frankland, a category A prison in County Durham. In May 2022 the Ministry of Justice confirmed he had applied for permission to marry a woman who had been visiting him. The prisons minister, Victoria Atkins, ordered an immediate review and called the proposed wedding "absolutely appalling." Under the law as it stood, prisoners serving whole life orders could apply to marry, and a governor could refuse only on security grounds. In March 2023 the government announced plans to bar whole life prisoners from marrying or forming civil partnerships. In June 2023 the Ministry of Justice accepted that "under current laws there are no legal routes to block this marriage," and it was reported that he had won legal aid to pursue the case.
The ban came into force on August 2, 2024, under the Victims and Prisoners Act. Bellfield had by then withdrawn his marriage application and applied for a civil partnership instead, and that application was blocked when the new law took effect; his application was believed to have prompted the government to bring the restriction in early. The Lord Chancellor can still allow a ceremony in the most exceptional circumstances. "Victims should not be tormented by seeing those who commit the most depraved crimes enjoy the moments" in life, the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said.
In January 2016 a joint Surrey and Sussex major crime team was investigating information that someone else had been involved in Milly's abduction. On January 27, 2016, detectives arrested a man in his 40s on suspicion of offences connected with her abduction, including assisting an offender, and released him. Police said they had investigated the claim thoroughly, found no evidence to support it, and taken no further action.
The same day, Surrey Police said that Bellfield, questioned during that inquiry, had admitted responsibility for Milly Dowler's abduction and murder and for further offences against her, offences he was never charged with. It was the first time, despite his conviction, that he had made such admissions to police. He had agreed to speak only to female officers. The Dowler family said the news had been devastating for a family that had already endured so much. On February 10 they released more of what he had told officers, so that the public would understand what he had done, and said that "now we know the final hours of Milly's life, perhaps her soul, at long last, can finally rest in peace."
Two days later Bellfield denied making any admission. His solicitor wrote to the police challenging the force to prove the confession, alleging he had been questioned informally without a solicitor and asking for any recording. Surrey Police confirmed receiving the letter and said it stood by its statement of January 27. Colin Sutton, by then retired, called the denial "breathtaking" and said he would be astounded if Surrey Police did not hold an unassailable record of what had been said.
In early 2015 the Metropolitan Police received information that Bellfield had admitted various serious crimes while in his cell at Wakefield. It coordinated inquiries across ten police forces into unsolved rapes and murders. Surrey Police interviewed him at Wakefield during the same period, and the force's press office told a reporter he had made a "number of admissions." The Met re-examined case files and stayed in contact with the families of people thought to be possible further victims.
On November 10, 2016, the Met announced that the inquiry was closed. "All lines of enquiry have now been exhausted," it said. There was, it said, no evidence to link him to any case for which he had not already been convicted. Police Professional reported that earlier investigations into possible links with the Russell murders in Kent and with an alleged child sex gang had also proved nothing. Bellfield was told of the outcome. A relative later complained to the press regulator, on his behalf, that a newspaper had wrongly reported that he had confessed to other murders; the regulator did not uphold the complaint.
None of the following claims and suspicions has led to a charge against him.
The Russell murders. In July 1996 Lin Russell, 45, and her six-year-old daughter Megan were killed and Lin's other daughter, then nine, was severely injured in a hammer attack on a country lane at Chillenden, near Canterbury in Kent, as they walked home from a school swimming gala. Michael Stone was convicted of the two murders and the attempted murder; a jury found him guilty twice, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Nottingham Crown Court in 2001. He is serving three life sentences and has always maintained his innocence. Earlier attempts to appeal failed. Speculation that Bellfield might be the real killer was long fed, KentOnline reported, by his resemblance to a photofit issued after the attack; the Metropolitan Police inquiry that closed in November 2016 ruled out any link.
In February 2022 Stone's legal team said Bellfield had written a statement giving details of the Russell killings, and that it would be passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Legal experts urged extreme caution. Professor Peter Squires of the University of Brighton said Bellfield had "a track record of admitting to things which do not materialise." Bellfield later retracted that statement. In April 2023 Stone's lawyers said he had written and signed a fresh confession, and his solicitor said he was "adamant" he was responsible. Stone's barrister has said Bellfield signed about five statements admitting the murders and told police under caution that he committed them.
On July 13, 2023, the commission decided not to refer Stone's convictions to the Court of Appeal, finding "no real possibility" they would be quashed and no new evidence or argument that would make one. Its review had included a substantial number of documents, interviews with officers from several forces and forensic tests. Stone's barrister, Mark McDonald, called the decision "utterly astonishing." In October 2023 the commission agreed, at the request of Stone's representatives, to carry out a further review. As of July 2026 that review was still open: the Justice Gap reported that the commission had instructed a forensic expert to carry out new tests and that Stone was due to give a new DNA sample, and Sky News reported that two witnesses had given the commission statements naming another man, now dead, and that his solicitor hoped to know the DNA results by the end of 2026. Stone's convictions stand. Bellfield has not been charged in connection with the Russell murders.
Elizabeth Chau. Elizabeth Chau, a 19-year-old computer studies student, disappeared in 1999. In 2023 Bellfield claimed he had kidnapped and killed her and buried her body, and he repeated the claim in sworn statements. After interviewing him over two days at HMP Frankland in November 2023, the Metropolitan Police said that "a number of inconsistencies and discrepancies have been uncovered which lead us to believe the confession is false," and decided not to dig at the site he had named. Her family said they were disappointed and still wanted the search carried out.
The Hastings attack. On January 11, 2004, Sarah Spurrell, then 24, was struck three times on the back of the head from behind by a man in a balaclava as she walked to a friend's house in Hastings, East Sussex; he ran off when a car came round the corner. Bellfield was reported to have confessed to the attack in March 2023. She learned of it two months later from ITV News London, and said police had treated her case as a joke. Sussex Police said its investigation remained open, that officers had attended at the time, and that it was reviewing recent information that had not yet been corroborated.
Patsy Morris. Police linked Bellfield to the 1980 strangling of Patsy Morris, 14, on Hounslow Heath, ITV News reported in 2016, but nothing has shown him to be responsible.
Other attacks. After the 2008 verdicts police said they were examining his possible role in about 20 other attacks on women, and in 2016 the Met was reported to be examining fresh information on as many as 20 serious sexual attacks. The ten-force inquiry closed in November 2016 without finding evidence linking him to any further case.
The alleged accomplice in the Dowler case. The 2016 claim that another man took part in Milly's abduction was investigated, and police found no evidence to support it. The court record is that Bellfield alone was convicted of her kidnapping and murder.
Bellfield is serving two whole life orders and will not be released. He was last reported to be held at HMP Frankland in November 2023. News reports in July 2026 describe him as still serving his sentences, and no change had been reported as of October 21, 2026.
Date not reported: Levi Bellfield is born in Isleworth, west London, and raised in west London.
March 20, 2002: an 11-year-old girl is approached by a man in a small red car in Shepperton and refuses a lift; Bellfield is later charged with attempting to kidnap her (no verdict).
March 21, 2002: Milly Dowler, 13, phones her father at 3:47 p.m. and is last seen on Station Avenue, Walton-on-Thames.
September 18, 2002: her remains are found in Yateley Heath Woods, Hampshire.
October 8, 2002: Milly's Fund is launched at Guildford Cathedral.
February 4, 2003: Marsha McDonnell, 19, is attacked after getting off a bus in Hampton; she dies the next day.
March 21, 2003: Milly's funeral is held in Walton.
May 28, 2004: Kate Sheedy, 18, is run down in Isleworth and survives.
August 19, 2004: Amelie Delagrange, 22, is attacked on Twickenham Green and dies.
November 2004: Bellfield is arrested by the Metropolitan Police after an appeal about a white van.
March 2005: Surrey Police appeal for information about a red Daewoo Nexia seen in Station Avenue.
July 6, 2005: arrested on suspicion of Milly's murder; not charged then.
February 25, 2008: convicted at the Old Bailey of the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy; no verdicts on the Dragoshi and A.R. counts; named by Surrey Police as a prime suspect for Milly.
February 26, 2008: whole life order, imposed in his absence by Mrs Justice Rafferty.
August 26, 2009: Surrey Police send a file to the Crown Prosecution Service.
March 2010: charged with Milly's kidnapping and murder and the Shepperton attempted kidnapping.
May 10, 2011: the second trial opens at the Old Bailey.
June 23, 2011: convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Milly Dowler.
June 24, 2011: jury discharged on the attempted kidnapping count; second whole life order imposed in his absence by Mr Justice Wilkie.
July 2011: the hacking of Milly's phone by the News of the World is widely reported.
February 2012: the Court of Appeal refuses permission to appeal.
July 2012: the High Court finds the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror in contempt over their June 24, 2011 coverage.
April 24, 2013: the IPCC reports that Surrey Police knew of the hacking allegation in 2002 and did not act.
April 2014: awarded 4,500 pounds over a 2009 attack by another prisoner.
Early 2015: the Met begins coordinating inquiries across ten forces into his claimed admissions.
January 27, 2016: Surrey Police say he has admitted Milly's abduction and murder and further offences against her; on February 12 he denies it.
November 10, 2016: the Met closes the ten-force inquiry, finding no evidence linking him to any further case.
February 2022: Michael Stone's lawyers disclose a statement by Bellfield about the Russell murders.
May 2022: his application to marry in prison, at HMP Frankland, is confirmed.
March 2023: reported to have confessed to the 2004 Hastings attack; Sussex Police inquiry remains open.
April 2023: Stone's lawyers say Bellfield has signed a fresh confession.
July 13, 2023: the CCRC declines to refer Stone's convictions.
October 2023: the CCRC agrees to a further review of Stone's case.
November 2023: the Met says his confession to killing Elizabeth Chau is false.
August 2, 2024: the Victims and Prisoners Act ban on marriage and civil partnership for whole life prisoners takes effect; his civil partnership application is blocked.
July 2026: the CCRC's further review of Stone's case is still under way, with new DNA testing.
October 21, 2026: Bellfield is serving two whole life orders; no later development reported.