TOM PETTIFOR: 'I saw the pain Levi Bellfield inflicted on families — I fear he's manipulating them again from behind bars'

Levi Bellfield undoubtedly committed more crimes than the three murders and one attempted murder for which he was convicted. Detectives who investigated him 22 years ago linked him to scores of unsolved offences, including a number of hammer attacks on girls and young women. It later emerged that Bellfield was part of a grooming gang who drugged, raped and filmed girls at a council flat dubbed the "raping room" by fellow paedophiles. So it is understandable that Elizabeth Chau's family believe police should dig at the site where he claims to have buried the 19-year-old computer studies student. When I first reported on Bellfield's crimes in August 2004 he was still prowling the streets of west London hunting victims while working as a wheel clamper. I had been dispatched by my news editor to the scene of Amelie Delagrange's hammer murder in leafy Twickenham, southwest London. The 22-year-old French student was bludgeoned to death the night before as she walked home across a cricket pitch. Amelie was attacked from behind on what looked like a village green, complete with an old fashioned pavilion. Detectives were quick to link her murder to the hammer killing of 19-year-old student Marsha McDonnell. Marsha bore a striking resemblance to Amelie and was beaten to death with a hammer in nearby Hampton, in February the year before. Bellfield was arrested three months later and was jailed for life in 2008 for both murders and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, in 2004. But it was not until May 2011 that I saw him in the flesh for the first time and witnessed the pain he continued to inflict on the families of his victims. As the Daily Mirror's crime correspondent, I covered Bellfield's Old Bailey trial for Milly Dowler's murder. Schoolgirl Milly was abducted and killed hours after she vanished while walking home from the train station in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in March 2002. Overweight and with a high pitched voice, he cut a pathetic figure in the dock. Though he refused to give evidence, Bellfield instructed his barrister to claim that he had nothing to do with the teen's murder and that she had run away from home. He cruelly tried to blame Milly's bereaved parents for their own daughter's death, saying she left because of them. His sick tactics culminated in his victim's mum, Sally, howling in the witness box after being accused of driving her daughter away. Mrs Dowler collapsed and shook with emotion as she was escorted out of court by husband Robert and a police officer. Bellfield was later convicted of Milly's murder and he is now serving a whole life jail term. Fighting back tears, Milly's sister Gemma said afterwards: "It was the worst day of my life. It's hard to believe, but it was worse than when I heard the news that Milly's remains had been found. It can only be described as mental torture. Have they not suffered enough?" My concern over Bellfield's latest claims is that he is again trying to manipulate a grieving family by making false assertions from behind bars.