Monsters who will die behind bars revealed after sick Damien Bendall is locked up for life for horrific hammer murders

BRITAIN’S most twisted criminals will die behind bars after being handed whole-life orders.

The punishment is the most severe available in the UK justice system and is reserved for the most serious crimes.

PA

Among those who will never be considered for release, unless in exceptional circumstances, is quadruple killer Damien Bendall.

On December 21, he joined 70 of Britain’s most dangerous offenders who will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Also on the list is disgraced former police officer Wayne Couzens, necrophiliac David Fuller and monster Levi Bellfield.

Other notorious names serving whole-life orders include serial killer Rose West, neo-Nazi Thomas Mair and terror attacker Khairi Saadallah.

Damien Bendall

PA

Damien Bendall murdered his pregnant partner Terri Harris, 35, her 11-year-old daughter Lacey Bennett, her son John Paul Bennett, 13, and Lacey’s friend Connie Gent, 11.

He also pleaded guilty to raping Lacey at their home in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, in September 2021.

Prosecutor Louis Mably KC described the attacks, carried out with a claw hammer, as “brutal, vicious and cruel”.

Bendall, 32, was sentenced to life in prison on December 21, 2022.

Wayne Couzens

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Ex-cop Wayne Couzens kidnapped, raped and murdered marketing executive Sarah Everard in March 2021.

He lured her into his car by fake arresting her using his warrant card in south London before driving her 80 miles to Kent where he raped then strangled her using his police-issue belt.

His whole-life order was the first time tariff had been imposed for a single murder of an adult not committed in the course of a terror attack.

Lord Justice Fulford said Couzens abused his position as a Met police officer.

Levi Bellfield

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Milly Dowler‘s killer, Levi Bellfield, is serving two whole-life orders – for her murder, the killings of Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange, as well as the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy.

He kidnapped and killed Milly, 13, while she was walking home from school in 2002.

Bellfield later murdered gap-year student Marsha, 19, in 2003, and 22-year-old French student Amelie in 2004.

Kate, 18, was deliberately run over in 2004 and escaped with multiple injuries.

Bellfield has been locked up since 2008.

Thomas Mair

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“Loner” gunman Thomas Mair murdered Labour MP and mum-of-two Jo Cox in 2016.

He carried out the “planned and pre-mediated” attack just minutes before she was due to hold a constituency surgery, and days before the EU referendum.

The “white supremacist”, who had viewed Nazi material in the run up to the killing, was given a whole-life sentence at the Old Bailey due to the “exceptional seriousness” of his crimes.

Jo suffered knife wounds to her heart, lungs, stomach and liver before being blasted three times through her hands with a sawn-off firearm.

Mark Bridger

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Mark Bridger is serving life for the abduction and murder of five-year-old April Jones.

The youngster vanished near her home in Machynlleth, Wales, in May 2013.

Bridger was arrested as he matched the description of the man eyewitnesses said spoke to April and drove her away in his car.

DNA evidence linked him to her murder, and he admitted he was “probably responsible” for her death, but her body has never been found.

Ian Brady

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Before they died, Moors murderer Ian Brady and his girlfriend Myra Hindley were also among those serving whole-life orders.

They lured children to their home in Saddleworth, Greater Manchester, before slashing their throats or strangling them.

Four of the five victims were also sexually assaulted.

Peter Sutcliffe

Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others in the late 1970s and early 80s.

He was handed 20 concurrent life sentences which were converted to a whole-life order in 2010.

David Fuller

Chris Eades

Morgue monster David Fuller will die in prison after murdering two women and sexually assaulting hundreds of corpses in hospital mortuaries.

The 67-year-old beat and strangled Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, to death before sexually assaulting them in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987.

Electrician Fuller, known as the Bedsit Killer, was caught 33 years after the attacks when a DNA breakthrough linked him to the murders. 

Rose West

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Serial killer Rose West committed a series of heinous crimes with her husband Fred during a 20-year spree.

Between them, they killed a dozen women, including Anne McFall, Charmaine West and Lynda Gough.

But West’s daughter fears her parents may have up to 30 more victims.

Khairi Saadallah

AFP

Terrorist Khairi Saadallah stabbed three men to death in a park in 2021.

The Libyan refugee, 26, shouted “Allahu akhbar” as he fatally knifed friends James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, in just ten seconds in Reading.

Three other people – Stephen Young, Patrick Edwards and Nishit Nisudan – were also injured in the minute-long attack.

Saadallah was sentenced to life behind bars after pleading guilty to three murders and three attempted murders at the Old Bailey.

Almost 70 criminals are serving whole-life orders.

According to Government figures, there were 64 recorded as of September.

It is understood there have been a further five since then.

In the past, Home Secretaries could issue whole-life tariffs. These are now determined by judges.

Under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which passed through Parliament earlier this year, the Government has expanded the use of whole-life orders for premeditated murder of a child.

The reforms allow judges to hand out the maximum sentence to 18- to 20-year-olds in exceptional cases, such as for acts of terrorism leading to mass loss of life.

The act also gives judges the discretion, in exceptional circumstances, to impose a whole-life order on offenders aged 18 or over but under 21.

Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi, who was convicted of conspiring with his suicide bomber brother Salman Abedi over the 2017 atrocity, avoided a whole life order because he was 21 at the time.