Anthony Hardy Pleads Guilty to Three Camden Murders and Is Told Life Should Mean Life
On the day his trial was due to begin, Hardy admitted killing Sally White, Elizabeth Valad and Bridgette MacLennan. The judge said no minimum term could be set.
Published
Anthony Hardy had never told police what happened to the three women who died in his Camden apartment. On November 25, 2003, the day his trial was to begin at the Old Bailey, he pleaded guilty to murdering all three.
Hardy, 52, admitted the murders of Sally White, Elizabeth Valad and Bridgette MacLennan. Mr. Justice Keith sentenced him to life imprisonment for each and concluded that no minimum term could properly be set, in effect a recommendation that he should never be released. "Only you know for sure how your victims met their deaths," the judge told him, "but the unspeakable indignities to which you subjected the bodies of your last two victims in order to satisfy your depraved and perverted needs are in no doubt."
Sally White's body had been found in Hardy's apartment on January 20, 2002, but an autopsy suggested a heart attack and no action was taken. The remains of Valad and MacLennan were found at the apartment and in nearby trash cans on December 30 and 31, 2002. Hardy had never denied that the women died at his hands; his lawyers had planned to argue diminished responsibility, and psychiatric reports found a personality disorder. He entered his pleas on the basis that he had meant to cause serious harm, not death. The prosecution did not accept that, and the judge found that, whatever his intent toward White, he had intended to kill the last two women.
Hardy was later transferred to Broadmoor Hospital. In May 2010 the High Court formally ordered that he serve a whole life term.
The High Court's 2010 judgment dates Hardy's guilty pleas to November 25, 2003, while a Crime+Investigation timeline gives November 24.
Sources
- R v Hardy [2010] EWHC 1064 (QB), High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division (Find Case Law, The National Archives)
- Anthony Hardy: The Camden Ripper, Crime+Investigation UK