The Crimes

"Further away in another industrial bin, the police found the right arm belonging to Elizabeth Valad, the left arm and left foot also belonging to Valad, and the lower torso of Bridgette MacClennan." Richard Horwell, Prosecutor at Hardy’s murder trial Martin Beckford, Court News UK Anthony Hardy starts 2003 with allegations of assaults and rapes against him; he ends the year as a triple murderer who faces ending his days in prison. In the winter of 2002, a tramp looking for food in rubbish bins in Camden comes across a grim discovery: human body parts. Further searches by the police indicate there are at least two victims. They launch a double murder inquiry. The location is yards from the council estate in North London where Hardy had made his home for the past three years. Neighbour June Gentleman, points the police towards Hardy. “When the police asked me if there was anyone suspicious...the only person I could think of was Mr Hardy”. After years of living in hostels, Hardy’s Camden flat was free from prying eyes and meant he was able to carry out his horrific crimes. Prosecutors at his trial would later say his motive for murder was to take pornographic pictures of his victims after he had indulged in a sado-masochistic sex ritual with them. Piecing together the evidence, it seems that Hardy had butchered the bodies of his victims with an electric saw and dumped the parts in a number of rubbish bags near his home. Evidence was to come closer to home, when police find a square shaped package covered in black bin bags in Hardy’s flat. Inside the bags is a female torso. Unable to find the victim’s head or hands, police are forced to use the serial number of her breast implants to identify the victim as 31-year-old prostitute, Elizabeth Valad. Similarly, 35-year-old Bridgette MacClennan is identified through DNA. The deaths are in keeping with the warnings given by Hardy’s psychiatrist, Dr Ian Collins in 2002: Hardy is a dangerous and violent man – particularly towards women and prostitutes. Police film inside Hardy’s squalid flat revealing the contents and a grim insight into Hardy and his thirst for violence and sex: pornographic films, satanic dubbings on the walls, tools of torture and blood stains. Drag blood mark show how Hardy’s victims were moved from the bathroom to the living room; called the dismemberment room by police. It is here where police found the hacksaw and knives Hardy used in the killings. As is common with some serial killers, Hardy takes souvenirs from his victims; most incriminating were the photographs of the dead women, with their faces obscured and posed by Hardy in obscene and degrading positions. This was not the first time that Hardy had used the level of sadistic violence he that had employed in the killing and dismemberment of Elizabeth and Bridgette. Unbeknownst to the police, Hardy had killed before. Hardy killed Sally White in January 2002. Investigating a neighbour dispute, Sergeant Nick Spinks had visited Hardy at home. In his flat the police discovered the naked corpse of 31-year-old Sally. Like Hardy’s later victims she is a prostitute working in the nearby Kings Cross red light area. In what seems contrary to the physical evidence, and the police’s expectations, the pathologist, Freddy Patel, deems the cause of death as a heart attack. But at his trial almost two years later, Hardy confesses to killing Sally. In August 2012, Freddy Patel is struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council after he is found to be guilty of misconduct by a tribunal. It emerged that he had made errors in a number of cases, including that of Sally White.