Levi Bellfield is serving a life term but six men with whom he groomed and raped underage girls may be free to re-offend, says a new report
The monster who abused and killed 13-year-old Miller Dowler and three other young women was part of a child sex gang that has not been brought to justice, according to a report which may spark a fresh Scotland Yard investigation.
The council report, by a social worker specialising in child sexual exploitation, links Levi Bellfield with a group of paedophiles accused of grooming at least 17 vulnerable girls under the age of 16 for sex.
It says Bellfield and other members of the gang abused children as young as 12 in a ‘raping room’ in his Hanwell home, at one point violating a 14-year-old girl they had dressed up in a school uniform which belonged to the daughter of one of the men present.
Today the Sunday Times reports Bellfield is among seven men identified by Debbie Weissang, who was then child sexual exploitation manager at Hillingdon council in west London.
After being convicted of Milly Dowler’s murder in 2011 Bellfield became the first British inmate to be sentenced to two whole-life tariffs.
He will never be released to reoffend, but Ms Weissang said: ‘there are six other men in my report who are not serving full-life tariffs in prison and in my opinion pose a serious threat to children.
‘I am deeply concerned there remains a risk to children both in the community and online from Bellfield’s associates.’
Milly Dowler was 13 when she was killed by Bellfield in 2002. upon his conviction for her murder in 2011 the serial killer received his fourth life sentence
Today Scotland Yard could not confirm whether it had opened an investigation into the gang named in the report, which was written in December 2017.
Bellfield, who owned a wheel-clamping business in west London, had a string of convictions for minor crimes prior to being arrested on suspicion of the murder of French student Amélie Delagrange, 22, in August 2004.
He was given three life sentences in 2008: one for the murder of Miss Delagrange, one for killing 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell, in Hampton in 2003; and one for the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, in May 2004.
Despite having been a suspect in the 2002 killing of Milly Dowler it was not until 2011 he was brought to justice, receiving a fourth life sentence and second whole-life tariff.
Scotland Yard has feared for more than a decade that Bellfield’s past might contain further horrors.
In February 2008 after Bellfield’s conviction for the murders of Marsha Mcdonnell and Amélie Delagrange, the detective chief inspector in charge of the investigation, Colin Sutton said: ‘We looked at a dozen crimes in west London and we have not been able to eliminate Levi from any of them.
‘I fear we may have only scratched the surface.’
Bellfield owned the flat in the west London suburb of Hanwell that contained ‘the raping room’, where the date rape drug GHB was slipped into the drinks of young victims during parties, the Sunday Times reports.
Three witness statements obtained during the inquiry into Miss Delagrange’s murder make reference to a video in which Bellfield and other men rape a 14-year-old girl dressed in a school uniform belonging to the daughter of a middle-aged Asian man also participating.
The video was never found, but some of the girls interviewed by police referred to the men as their ‘dad ring’.
Dt Chf Insp Sutton, said last week: ‘Bellfield was a serial sex predator when it came to young girls and we had evidence that linked him to a number of convicted paedophiles.’
He added he had little doubt that the incriminating video of Bellfield existed, ‘but where it is now, I have no idea’.
The alleged abuse gang has similarities to a series of cases in northern town over the last five years, notably Rochdale in which gang leader Sahbir Ahmed, 59, was alleged to have ordered underage girls to call him ‘Daddy’ as he abused them.
In 2012 a gang of nine men convicted of grooming young white girls between 13 and 15 for sex were jailed for between four and 19 years for offences committed against five girls in and around Rochdale between 2008 and 2010.
The ‘bus stop killer’: A timeline of Levi Bellfield’s attacks
French student Amelie Delagrange
March 21 2002: Milly, 13, is walking home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, when she disappears. Her remains are found six months later 25 miles away.
February 2003: Marsha McDonnell, 19, gets off a bus near her home in Hampton after a night out with friends, and is struck three times on the back of the head with a blunt object by Bellfield.
May 2004: Kate Sheedy, 18, is left for dead after Bellfield runs her down in his car after she gets off a bus in Isleworth after spending the evening with friends.
August 2004: Amelie Delagrange, 22, is battered to death by Bellfield after she gets off at the wrong bus stop and is attacked walking across Twickenham Green. She dies of head injuries.
Marsha McDonnell was attacked after getting off the bus
February 2008: Bellfield is convicted of the murders of Marsha and Amelie, and the attempted murder of Kate.
March 2010: Bellfield is charged with killing Milly.
May 2011: Bellfield goes on trial at the Old Bailey after he denies abducting and murdering Milly.
June 2011: Bellfield yawns as he is found guilty of Milly’s murder. The following day he refuses to attend court where he is jailed for life. Bellfield becomes the first person to receive two whole-life terms.
February 2012: Bellfield loses a Court of Appeal bid to challenge his conviction for Milly’s kidnap and murder.
January 2016: Bellfield admits abducting, raping and killing schoolgirl Milly Dowler for the first time, Surrey Police say.
The report by Debbie Weissang appears to support evidence, originally gathered by police that he was part of a paedophile gang.
She found 17 alleged victims of Bellfield’s gang – mostly white, British, vulnerable and in care, as in the Rochdale cases – with allegations of abuse going back to 2000.
One 14-year-old girl claims to have been assaulted in the Hanwell ‘raping room’ only days after the murder of Delagrange in 2004.
Accused: Convicted paedophile Victor Kelly, 62, is named in the report as having been a member of Bellfield’s abuse gang
Among the alleged offenders identified by Weissang is Victor Kelly, who was 62 when he was convicted in 2005 of offering a 12-year-old girl cocaine to have sex with him. Kelly liked to be called ‘Uncle Joe’ and would invite girls to his flat in Hayes, west London, to play computer games. He is now on the sex offenders’ register for life and banned from being alone with children.
Also named in the report is Suraj Gharu, who at 25 was jailed for five years for sex offences and for removing a child from the care of social services.
Former Det Chf Insp Sutton said some of the links made in the report were new. ‘There is new information in there that my investigation was not aware of,’ he said. ‘I think the police and council should be taking it very seriously indeed.’
Ms Weissang said: ‘The men of interest have conditioned themselves to believe they have done nothing wrong and are untouchable.’
She said the council and the police should ‘carry out a full review of the findings because [the report] shows evidence of a child sex ring and its members have not been brought to justice’.
A Hillingdon council spokesman told MailOnline: ‘Following completion of the report the information was carefully reviewed by Hillingdon Council’s Head of Safeguarding in partnership with the Metropolitan Police to ensure a timely and proportionate response.
‘A dedicated police resource was also assigned to review the information.
‘Hillingdon Council’s Children’s Social Care team conducted numerous safeguarding checks including liaison with all relevant agencies.’
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: ‘A safeguarding report was received from Hillingdon Council. Any allegations of Child Sexual Exploitation contained in the report will be assessed and be investigated where appropriate’.
How a series of British towns and cities have been hit by revelations of Asian sex gangs in their midst
Rochdale – The trial of nine men for grooming young white girls for sex attracted widespread public outrage and sparked a national debate when they were convicted in 2012.
The gang received jail sentences of between four and 19 years for offences committed against five girls – aged between 13 and 15 – in and around Rochdale between 2008 and 2010.
The case returned to the public consciousness earlier this year when the BBC broadcast its Three Girls drama based on the experiences of some of the victims.
(Top row, left to right:) Tayab Dad, Nasar Dad, Basharat Dad. (Bottom row left to right:) Matloob Hussain, Mohammed Sadiq and Amjad Ali previously found to have groomed two girls and sexually abused in Rotherham
Newcastle – A total of 17 men and one woman were convicted of, or admitted, charges including rape, supplying drugs and inciting prostitution, in Newcastle last year.
Older men preyed on immature teenagers who were plied with cocaine, cannabis, alcohol or mephedrone (M-Cat), then raped or persuaded into having sexual activity at parties known as ‘sessions’.
The case raised huge controversy after a convicted rapist was paid almost £10,000 of taxpayers’ money to spy on parties where under-age girls were intoxicated and sexually abused.
Northumbria Police launched a major investigation after receiving information from social workers and initially spoke to 108 potential victims. Over the course of four trials, 20 young women gave evidence covering a period from 2011 to 2014.
Oxford – A group of men who abused teenage girls in a vehicle they called the ‘s**gwagon’ were jailed for a total of nearly 90 years in June this year.
The men – aged 36 to 48 – befriended vulnerable girls as young as 13 before plying them drink and drugs at ‘parties’ in Oxford.
The eight men – branded ‘predatory and cynical’ by a judge – were jailed for between seven and a half and fifteen years each.
Bristol – Some 13 Somali men were jailed for more than a total of more than 100 years after they were convicted in 2014 of running an inner city sex ring.
Victims as young as 13 were preyed upon, sexually abused and trafficked across Bristol to be passed around the men’s friends for money.
Aylesbury – Six men were jailed in 2015 for grooming vulnerable under-age white girls between 2006 and 2012.
The Old Bailey heard victims would be plied with alcohol and forced to perform sex acts for as little as ‘the price of a McDonalds’.
Peterborough – A total of 10 men were convicted of child sex crimes in the town, including ‘predatory’ restaurant boss Mohammed Khubaib.
He was jailed for 13 years at the Old Bailey in 2015, after he was found guilty of forcing a 14-year-old girl to perform a sex act on him and nine counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, involving girls aged from 12 to 15, between 2010 and 2013.
20 men were jailed for a total of more than 250 years for abuse in Huddersfield
Telford – Earlier this year, Telford became the latest town to become the focus of the now sadly familiar stories of abuse.
A Sunday Mirror investigation concluded that around 1,000 children could have been sexually exploited in the Shropshire town over a 40-year period, leading to calls for a public inquiry.
Huddersfield – 20 sex abusers who targeted vulnerable girls as young as eleven in the Yorkshire town were jailed for a combined total of more than 220 years.
Leeds Crown Court heard evidence from 15 victims during the trials and the judge said he fears none of them will ever recover from their ordeals.
In victim statements the girls described coming into contact with the abusers after being bullied at school and said the relationship became ‘one of those things that you couldn’t get out of’.