The Arrest

"Anthony John Hardy has exhibited a degree of depravity in the way he committed these appalling crimes that I personally have never ever come across before." Detective Chief Inspector Ken Bell, Metropolitan Police BBC News Online, 25 November 2003With the discovery of a female torso in his Camden flat, the hunt is on to locate and arrest the prime suspect, 51-year-old drifter, Anthony Hardy. Hardy flees from the scene of his crimes and having established that he has no car, is diabetic and needs regular medication, the police target local hospitals to trap their suspect.Within days this pays off. The case is front page news and the public knows what Hardy looks like. Retired police officer Mike Burrowes, recognises the man the press were calling the Camden Ripper and he calls detectives.Police arrest Hardy in a waiting room at Great Ormond Street hospital and begin questioning him. Hardy was arrested wearing the baseball cap which was found later in the haul of obscene photographs featuring Elizabeth Valad’s corpse.Hardy is taken to Colindale Police station in North London. Lead detective D.S. Alan Bostock asks his suspect about the incriminating photographs found in his flat. He shows Hardy the photo of the naked body of Sally White. “Is that, Mr Hardy, is the dead lady, the corpse which we found in your bedroom?” asks the veteran detective. Hardy replies “no comment”. He replies the same to all the questions the police put to him.He is eventually charged with the murders of both Elizabeth and Bridgette as well as Sally White, the woman whose death had originally been put down to natural causes.