Early life

Born in Burton upon Trent

Burton upon Trent

Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a town straddling the River Trent in the east of Staffordshire, England. Its associated adjective is "Burtonian"....

, Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, Anthony Hardy had an apparently uneventful childhood and excelled in school and college, particularly in engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

.

He married and fathered three sons and one daughter, but his wife divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

d him in 1986, accusing him of domestic violence

Domestic violence

Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...

. In 1982 Hardy had been arrested for trying to drown his wife, but the charges were later dropped.

After the divorce, Hardy spent time in mental hospital

Mental Hospital

Mental hospital may refer to:*Psychiatric hospital*hospital in Nepal named Mental Hospital...

s, diagnosed with bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

. He lived in various hostels in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, picking up convictions for theft and being drunk and disorderly. He was arrested in 1998 when a prostitute accused him of raping

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 her, but the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence

Evidence

Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...

.

Murders

In January 2002 police were called to the block of flats where Hardy lived after a neighbour complained that someone had vandalised

Vandalism

Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

 her front door and that she strongly suspected Hardy. When the police investigated Hardy's flat they found a locked door and, despite his claims to the contrary, police found that Hardy had a key. In the room the police found the naked dead body of a woman lying on a bed with cuts and bruises to her head. She was identified as Sally White, 38, a prostitute living in London.

Forensic pathologist Dr Freddy Patel subsequently concluded that White had died of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

, in spite of the circumstances. Patel later came under scrutiny for this and other findings in his career, including the 2009 death of Ian Tomlinson

Death of Ian Tomlinson

Ian Tomlinson was an English newspaper vendor who collapsed and died in the City of London after coming into contact with the police while on his way home from work during the 2009 G-20 summit protests. A first postmortem examination indicated he had suffered a heart attack and had died of natural...

, resulting in a suspension from the government's register of pathologists pending an inquiry.

Hardy spent a short time in jail for the vandalism offence.

On December 30, 2002 a homeless man hunting for food in bins found some of the dismembered remains of two women found stuffed in bin-liners. The victims were identified as Bridgette MacClennan, 34, and Elizabeth Valad, 29.

Arrest and trial

The investigation led to Hardy, who was arrested a week later. He had gone on the run, but was spotted by an off-duty policemen when he went to a hospital to collect his prescription for insulin. A search of his flat found that there was evidence, including old blood stains, that indicated the two women had been killed and dismembered there. Both had died over the Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 holidays.

Under arrest, Hardy simply said "no comment" to every question put to him by police. He was eventually charged with the murders of both MacClennan and Valad, and Sally White, the woman whose death had originally been put down to natural causes.

At his trial in November 2003 Hardy, despite his initial lack of cooperation with the police, abruptly changed his plea to guilty to all three counts of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

.

Because of Hardy's history of psychiatric problems and violent behaviour, an independent enquiry was announced into his care.

Police have been reported to believe that Hardy was likely to be connected to the unsolved cases of two prostitutes found dismembered and dumped in the Thames, and up to five or six other area murders that bore marked similarities to the ones for which he was convicted, but there is not enough evidence available directly implicating him in the murders for further action.

In May 2010, a High Court judge decided that Hardy should never be released from prison, placing him on the list of Whole life tariff

Whole life tariff

This is a list of prisoners who have received a whole life tariff through some mechanism in jurisdictions of the United Kingdom.Eight of these prisoners have since died in prison, while three of them have had their sentences reduced on appeal, meaning that there are currently at least 48 prisoners...

 prisoners.

Mr Justice Keith, sitting in London, said: "This is one of those exceptionally rare cases in which life should mean life."

In popular culture

After Hardy was imprisoned British rap

Rapping

Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

 artist Plan B released a song about Hardy, dubbing him the 'Camden Ripper'. The song describes how Hardy had psychiatric problems and was able to carry out the murders because of "neighbours who were always out raving". Hardy is also mentioned, and his flat pointed out, in the music video "Guided tour of Camden" by Charlie Sloth

Charlie Sloth

Charlie Sloth is a hip hop artist who was born and raised in Camden Town, North London, England.Sloth become notorious for his "Cant forget about UK" track which named pioneers such as MC Duke, Stereo MC's and TY...

.
The song talks about a fictional victim, Suzanne Smith.
Hardy was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary, "The Hunt for the Camden Ripper", broadcast in 2004. It was narrated by Juliet Stevenson

Juliet Stevenson

Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, CBE is an English actor of stage and screen.- Early life :Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth , a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer. Stevenson's father was in the army and was posted to a new place every...

 and directed by Olly Lambert

External links