Killer who threw victims' body parts in canals will die in prison

A DOUBLE killer who called himself the Scalp Hunter was told yesterday that he will die in jail after being convicted of butchering two women and dumping them in canals.

John Sweeney, 54, was given a whole-life tariff at the Old Bailey in London for the murders of former girlfriends Paula Fields and Melissa Halstead.

Their bodies were discovered a decade apart in England and Holland, and police now fear three other missing women may have suffered the same fate. Sweeney, a carpenter, boasted of his violence in lurid paintings and verse found at his home - and in one picture, showing a bloody axe, he called himself the Scalp Hunter.

He refused to go to court from his prison cell at Belmarsh Prison to be sentenced.

Mr Justice Saunders said the gravity of the offences was exceptional and only a whole-life term would do.

He said: "These were terrible, wicked crimes.

"The heads of the victims having been removed, it is impossible to be certain how they were killed."

The judge said the killings had been planned.

Sweeney was said to have a hatred of women and turned violent when they tried to reject him.

In addition to the two murders, he also launched an axe attack on a girlfriend, nurse Delia Balmer, who was only saved when a neighbour arrived to help. Some 300 paintings, wooden sculptures and poems were found at his home when he was arrested while on the run in 2001.