Daughter whose mother’s corpse was abused by necrophiliac murderer David Fuller loses High Court battle to widen scope of official inquiry
- Fuller admitted the 1987 murders of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce last year
- He also admitted a further 51 offences relating to abuse of at least 102 corpses
- Warped bedsit killer was sentenced to two whole life orders for horrific crimes
- Health Secretary Sajid Javid then announced independent inquiry will take place
- But Amanda Miah complained to High Court judge that scope is too narrow
- High Court judge today refused to give her the go-ahead to stage legal challenge
A daughter whose mother’s corpse was sexually abused by warped morgue killer David Fuller has lost a High Court battle to widen the scope of a of an official inquiry into his heinous crimes.
Fuller, 67, was sentenced to two whole life orders for the 1987 murders of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in December.
He also admitted a further 51 offences related to sexually abusing more than 100 victims, one of whom was just nine, while working as an electrician in the mortuaries of Kent and Sussex and Tunbridge Wells hospitals over more than a decade.
An independent inquiry was launched by Health Secretary Sajid Javid last year to probe how he escaped unpunished for decades – including drawing on recommendations from the Jimmy Saville probe.
But Amanda Miah complained to a High Court judge that the scope of the inquiry is too narrow.
She asked Mr Justice Swift, who is presiding over arguments at the hearing, to give her the green light for a legal challenge.
Jude Bunting, representing Ms Miah, argued that arrangements for the inquiry do not ‘meet the needs’ of Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights – which says no one should be subjected to ‘inhuman or degrading treatment’.
The barrister also said the claim is ‘strongly arguable’ and of ‘considerable wider importance’.
But the judge today refused to give her the go-ahead to stage a challenge.
Fuller was sentenced to two whole life orders for the double murder in December last year after spending decades living a normal life
Wendy Knell (left) and Caroline Pierce (right) were beaten and strangled by Fuller before being sexually assaulted in in Tunbridge Wells, Kent
After taking the lives of two young women in their prime, Fuller went on to commit further crimes of almost unimaginable evil – raping and sexually molesting the bodies of at least 100 women and girls in mortuaries to which he had access as a hospital electrician
The ‘Terms of Reference’ for the independent inquiry into David Fuller
Following consultation with families of the victims and other interested parties, inquiry chair Sir Jonathan Michael says the probe will look at:
- The level of Fuller’s supervision and what mechanisms were in place to check his working practices
- Employment checks and whether there were earlier offences
- Whether the Trust should perform additional checks for staff with mortuary access
- The Trust’s arrangements for post-mortem examinations
- Whether there was a process for places receiving the deceased from the Trust, for example, funeral directors, to raise concerns
- The Trust’s policies for access to restricted areas, including monitoring of swipe card access and CCTV
- Recommendations from relevant inquiries and investigations, for example the investigations into Jimmy Savile
- The role of the Human Tissue Authority
- Procedures and practices of mortuaries in non-hospital settings
- The interactions between private contractors and the NHS
- Pre-employment checks for locum mortuary staff, and the application of safeguarding legislation to the deceased.
Instead, Mr Justice Swift ruled that she did not have an arguable case.
Earlier this year, inquiry chair Sir Jonathan Michael confirmed that the probe would draw on ‘recommendations from relevant inquiries’, including ‘the investigations into Jimmy Savile’.
It will also delve into how Fuller was able to pass employment checks to work at the hospitals despite being convicted of 26 counts of burglary in 1973 while living in Portsmouth.
It was not until 2015 that Fuller had to undergo a criminal record check in the wake of the Jimmy Savile revelations.
It then emerged he had lied about his burglary conviction in order to secure his role as an electrician at the hospitals.
The inquiry is also set to probe whether Fuller carried out any further, not yet identified offences while working at the hospital and if he colluded with anyone to hide his heinous crimes.
An initial report on matters relating to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is expected by the middle of this year, before a final report looking at the broader national picture and the wider lessons for the NHS is to be published by the middle of 2023.
At Fuller’s sentencing last year, the court heard how he was identified as the prime suspect in the murders of Ms Knell and Ms Pierce after a DNA breakthrough achieved by analysing genetic material found at the crime scenes and searching criminal databases for relatives.
The electrician was totally unknown to police at the time of his arrest in 2020, but officers discovered a partial DNA match in one of his relatives after combing through a list of 1,000 people on the database who could be related to the killer.
After investigating Fuller, officers arrested him at his home in Heathfield, East Sussex, where he lived with his family.
Detectives said he did not look surprised, but he denied any involvement and said he had no knowledge of the case or the area where the women lived.
Detectives said Fuller did not look surprised when they arrested him, but he initially denied any involvement and said he had no knowledge of the case
Fuller (pictured) was part of a cycling club in the 1980s, of which one of their routes travelled directly past where Ms Pierce’s body was found
During a search of his home, police found hard drives, floppy discs and CDs with 14 million images of sex offences – including filming himself committing the heinous acts. Images of him attacking corpses were also discovered.
Some victims were abused on multiple occasions and some both before and after post-mortem examinations.
His youngest victim was just nine, two were aged 16, and the oldest was 100. The identities of the remaining 20 victims may never be known.
Morgue rapist David Fuller: A timeline of the heinous offences
1973: Fuller grew up in a terraced house in Angerstein Road, Portsmouth, and was living at the address when he was convicted of 26 counts of burglary.
June 23, 1987: Ms Knell is found dead in her apartment in Guildford Road on by her boyfriend. The bed, duvet and pillows were bloodstained, and her bloodstained head was resting on a towel. Police could find no signs of forced entry, and neighbours heard nothing through the flat’s thin walls.
November 24, 1987: Ms Pierce, manager at a popular restaurant, is murdered by Fuller. However, it is not until three weeks later that her body – naked apart from a pair of tights – is found in a water-filled dyke of a remote field on Romney Marsh in Kent.
January 1989: Fuller begins working as an electrical maintenance craftsman at Kent and Sussex and Tunbridge Wells hospitals.
2008: The first evidence of Fuller having filmed and photographed himself sexually abusing the bodies of dozens of women at the mortuaries.
2012: Kent Police reveals it has a full DNA profile of their prime suspect for the murders of Ms Knell and Ms Pierce.
2015: Fuller has to undergo a criminal record check for the first time in the wake of revelations Jimmy Savile sexually assaulted patients. It emerges he had convictions for burglaries in the 1970s that he is understood to have previously lied about.
December 2020: Fuller is identified as the prime suspect in the murders after a DNA breakthrough achieved by analysing genetic material found at the crime scenes and searching criminal databases for relatives. Officers arrest him at his home in Heathfield, East Sussex, where he lived with his family, in the early hours of December 3.
January 2021: Fuller admits responsibility for both killings at Maidstone Crown Court, but his barrister says he will deny murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He is later charged with additional offences relating to the sexual abuse of more than 100 victims.
November 4, 2021: After his trial gets underway, Fuller changes his plea to guilty. He also admits a further 51 offences related to sexually abusing at least 102 victims, of which 82 have been identified, in the mortuaries over more than a decade.
December 15, 2021: Fuller appears for sentencing at Maidstone Crown Court.
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