Anthony Hardy turned his flat into a satanic shrine to death as he brought the same terror to the Camden area of north London as Jack the Ripper had inflicted on the women of London’s Whitechapel over 100 years before.
When police examined the walls of his flat, which were covered in Celtic crosses and cruciforms, they found slivers of dried skin and flesh stuck and smeared to the wallpaper.
The murder inquiry began when a tramp foraging for food found human remains in a wheelie bin near to Hardy’s home in Royal College Street, Camden on December 30, 2002.
‘He opened a green refuse sack and was immediately aware of a foul smell,’ prosecutor Richard Horwell told the Old Bailey.
‘The sack contained a pair of human legs.’
Hardy, then 51, was born in Winshill, near Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire,the youngest of four and was, by all accounts, a normal child.
He met his wife Judith when he was studying engineering in London and they married in 1972, later moving to Bury St Edmunds.
They emigrated to Australia and had four children, but the marriage fell apart.
Hardy returned to London and began a life on the streets, moving between hostels and drinking heavily.
Hardy spent time in mental hospitals, diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was also treated in psychiatric hospitals across London for depression, drug-induced psychosis and alcohol abuse.
Neighbours at the bedsit where he lived for three years noticed his strange manner and heard sawing noises coming from Hardy’s home deep into the night.
His motive for murder was so to take pornographic pictures of his victims after he had indulged in a sado-masochistic sex ritual with them.
‘He did photograph two of these victims when they were dead in various positions,’ said Mr Horwell.
‘The defendant was in the process of preparing the body of the first victim to be photographed when he was interrupted.’
Hardy dressed his victims in a devil’s mask and Mr Men ‘Mr Happy’ socks before taking the pictures.
Police had caught him with his first victim almost a year before the discovery of the bodies in the bins – but could not charge him with murder.
Officers went to Hardy’s Camden flat on January 20, 2002 after he scrawled anobscene message on the door of an upstairs neighbour’s flat.
They had rowed over a leaking pipe and Hardy bore her a grudge.
One of the officers asked to go into a locked room but Hardy said he did not have the key which was then found in his coat pocket.
(Notice the computer)
When the bedroom door was opened police found the naked body of the neighbour, Sally ‘Rose’ White.
Miss White was found to have a bite mark on her right thigh, and a wound on her head but neither injury was fatal.
The pathologist Dr Freddy Patel found evidence of severe coronary heart disease, and decided the most likely cause of death was a heart attack.
Mr Horwell said: ‘In light of that conclusion, the police had no choice but to agree that no further action could not be taken against the defendant in connection with her death.’
Hardy pleaded guilty to criminal damage of the door on March 12, 2002, and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
He was released from St Lukes Hospital, Muswell Hill on November 4, 2002.
Almost after his arrest year later the body parts of Elizabeth Valad, 29, and Bridgette MaClennan, 34, were discovered by the tramp rummaging through the bins.
Hardy killed Elizabeth, from Arnold, Nottingham, some time between December 10 and December 31 and New Zealander Bridgette between December 23 and December 30.
After arranging the bodies in grotesque poses the engineer took the photographs which were developed in a Soho laboratory.
Hardy butchered the bodies with an electric saw and dumped parts in eight bags in the bin near his home in Royal College Street.
Mr Horwell said: ‘At that location two pieces of leg belonging to Elizabeth Valad and the upper torso belonging to Bridgette MaClennan were discovered.
‘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 MaClennan.’
Other parts were left in various locations in the Camden area including the head and hands, which were so carefully disposed of that they have never been found.
Police went to Hardy’s home on December 31, and found the front door open.
The prosecutor said: ‘There was a light on inside but the flat was empty.
The door to the bedroom was locked and a cloth had been placed along the bottom of that door.
‘Officers were immediately aware of a revolting smell coming from behind that door.
‘Police officers forced open the bedroom door and a torso was found, belonging to Elizabeth Valad.’
The investigation led to Hardy, who was arrested a week later. He had gone on the run, but was spotted by an off-duty policeman when he went to University College Hospital to collect his prescription for insulin. During a search of the grounds of the hospital, Hardy was found hiding behind bins. A fight took place as he resisted arrest, during the course of which a police officer was knocked unconscious and another officer was stabbed through the hand and had his eye dislocated from its socket. Despite suffering these injuries, the wounded police officer held Hardy until backup arrived and he was arrested at the scene. A subsequent search of his flat found evidence, including old blood stains, indicating the two women had been killed and dismembered there. Both had died over the Christmas holidays.
Detectives found a brand of rubber gloves when they searched the flat, together with the devil’s mask he had put on his victims before he photographed them.
There was also a glass bottle on which he had written ‘Sally White RIP’ and a stack of porn films and videos.
‘They also recovered a number of fantasy letters that the defendant had written, intending to send them to magazines illustrating various sexual encounters he had claimed to have had,’ Mr Horwell said.
Police took seven weeks to search and examine the flat which was covered in cruciforms and weird satanic daubings.
A friend of Hardy’s had been sent film negatives, with a note that read:’Frank, please keep these negatives for me at all costs.’
The envelope contained 44 photographs taken of his two final victims.
Mr Horwell said: ‘In the case of Valad he had put on her feet a pair of Mr Men ‘Mr Happy’ socks that he had purchased on the 6th of December. ‘He had placed on Elizabeth Valad’s face some of the photographs, a devil’s mask and a baseball cap. ‘Inserted or placed near to her vagina was a Rampant Rabbit vibrator which the defendant had purchased.’ The photographs of Bridgette were found to be very similar. All three women had been strangled by Hardy, who was to tell police it waspart of a sex game and he had not intended to kill his victims. He claimed he was a ‘gregarious, intelligent well trusted man’ until he was made redundant and divorced in the 1980s. Mr Justice Kelly passed three life sentences and told Hardy he must never be released.
‘The unspeakable indignities to which you subjected the bodies of your last two victims in order to satisfy your depraved and perverted needs arenot in doubt,’ the judge said.
Detective Chief Inspector Ken Bell said: ‘Hardy dismembered his last two victims with considerable skill;whether this was part of his gratification or simply an attempt to hide his crimes we will never know.’
(Source: https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/anthony-hardy/)
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(The Independent London, Greater London, England · Wednesday, November 26, 2003)
(Evening Standard London, Greater London, England · Tuesday, November 25, 2003)
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He writes romantic letters to prostitutes. Inviting them to his apartment.
Victims were posed and photographed dead with devil iconography around them.
Obsessed with Jack The Ripper.
Was heavily into BDSM.
They found bags with human body parts in bin bags all over the neighborhood of Camden.
They’ve never found the hands, heads, and feet of the victims.
Hardy was diagnosed with a personality disorder.
Hardy died of pneumonia at HM Prison Frankland, County Durham, on 25 November 2020, aged 69.
https://archive.is/GtklE
They were the daughters of a civil servant, a university lecturer and a computer expert; they were young, loved and had their whole future ahead of them.
But the common threads weaving through the lives of Sally Rose White, Elizabeth Valad and Brigette MacClennan, did not end with their respectable backgrounds.
Through prostitution and drugs, the three women were drawn to the streets of King's Cross, London, and caught in lives far removed from their middle-class beginnings.
Living anonymously in the underbelly of London, they crossed the path of Anthony Hardy, who satisfied his satanic perversions by preying on young prostitutes picked up from the streets or through contact magazines.
For the parents and family of Sally White, Hardy's first known victim, the manner of her death was shocking enough when they were initially contacted by police on Jan 20, 2002.
It was to be a year later that they learned the truth; their youngest daughter had not died naturally as police had said. She had been murdered by Hardy, her naked body left on his bed amid crucifixes, a black stiletto shoe and gaudy black and red murals.
Miss White was born in Southampton on Sept 23 1963, the youngest daughter of Arthur White, a computer expert, and his wife Muriel.
As a baby she exhibited developmental problems early on which at seven months were put down to brain damage.
Miss White's parents sent her to a special school. When she left at 16 her attempts to hold down a job were frustrated by severe behavioural difficulties. Employers repeatedly dismissed her for violence and aggression and she soon began running away from home and sleeping rough. Her father or the police would bring her back but she would always flee again.
In the mid-1980s she moved with her family to Dorset, and there were times of stability in her life when she worked as a shop assistant.
In 1991 when she was 28, Miss White gave birth to a daughter, Louise, who was given up for adoption. Refusing all help from her family, she moved to London to live alone. But she ended up working as a prostitute to pay for her crack addiction and taking shelter in a Salvation Army hostel.
She crossed Hardy's path in the streets around King's Cross, where he lived in a dingy flat in a three-storey council block.
Her parents, both in their sixties and living in Portugal, said yesterday: "It had a profound effect on our large and loving family.
"Although Sally had chosen to live an independent life in London she remained in contact with members of the family and was always aware of her importance to us."
Like Miss White, Hardy's second victim came from a loving family. Elizabeth Valad, 29, was the daughter of an Iranian-born university professor, Hassad Valad, and his wife Jackie.
After separating from her husband, Mrs Valad moved to Nottingham and sent her child to Arnold comprehensive school where she became known for her beauty and her temper.
Peter Harrold, her mother's partner, said: "She was a troublesome girl at school, from the age of 13 or 14. She mixed with the wrong people.
"She would bring her friends home and they would pinch things from the house, a car off the driveway, or pinch a television and video. That's the way she was, pinching from her own mother."
Elizabeth left school at 16 without qualifications and a year later moved to London. She told her mother she was working as a secretary.
On her visits home, however, her mother and Mr Harrold commented on her designer clothes, wondering where she found the money.
Miss Valad, who had a baby daughter, was working as a prostitute in a sex parlour that advertised itself as a sauna, offering sexual services at £30 a time. It was there she met the man she would later describe as her "meal ticket", a multi-millionaire in his seventies, who set her up in a flat in Chelsea.
For 10 years Miss Valad lived off him, but was also thought to be selling her services to other men. She wore designer clothes, drove a £40,000 Mercedes and dined at the Ritz with her tycoon. Realising the truth, Mrs Valad repeatedly asked her daughter to come home.
"Jackie asked me if I minded Liz coming home to live with us, even though we only have a small two-bedroom house. I said I would welcome her any time," said Mr Harrold. "Her mother knew she was a hostess and I think she was ashamed of it."
Each request, however, was met by a refusal. Miss Valad was having too much fun living a millionaire lifestyle with her tycoon.
By 2001, however, the money and the man had gone after Miss Valad took up with a younger man on holiday in the Caribbean and she was forced into street prostitution.
Shortly after Christmas 2002 she met Hardy in King's Cross. Nothing more was to be seen of her until a tramp discovered parts of a woman's legs in a black bin liner in a wheelie bin in Royal College Street on Dec 30. Her torso was later found in Hardy's flat.
Arthur Williams, a former boyfriend, said Miss Valad had tried to change her life but had run into difficulties.
"She never did drugs until the last few months of her life when things started falling apart.
"She went through personal disaster after personal disaster. Nothing went right for her."
In Nottingham, her mother could not bear to watch the news or read the papers as the details of her daughter's horrific death emerged.
"The nature of Lizzie's death tears me apart," she said later. "I will never understand why she wanted to sell her services. She just had no need to. She was talented and beautiful."
Brigette MacClennan, 34, was the last of Hardy's victims to be identified from the body parts found in the wheelie bin and in his flat.
The daughter of a civil servant, she was born in New Zealand as the youngest of five children. In 1974, when she was five, she moved to England with her parents. At 17 she gave birth to a child but the relationship with the father did not last. In 1992 she met and married Abdel Amzil and had another baby, a boy.
But within three years he had moved out and Miss MacClennan struggled to cope. She became entangled in the drugs scene and turned to prostitution from her flat in Camden, north London.
A year before her death she was evicted from the fifth-floor flat after a drugs raid. She ended up on the streets where, like the victims before her, she was to meet Anthony Hardy.
Police in London are trying to establish what links murdered prostitute Bridgette MacClennan had with New Zealand.
Body parts belonging to the 34-year-old were found in wheelie bins 10 days ago outside a pub in Camden, north London.
British police said on Monday that Bridgette MacClennan was born in New Zealand, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said yesterday that she had never been issued with a New Zealand passport.
Spokesman Brad Tattersfield said staff at the High Commission in London were working with police to find out what links she had with New Zealand.
"It is not clear whether she was in fact a New Zealand citizen," Mr Tattersfield said.
"There is no record of her ever having a New Zealand passport, and I'm not sure whether her parents are New Zealanders."
Bridgette MacClennan is thought to have shifted to England as a teenager and settled in London with her mother, brother and civil servant father, Roderick.
She married Moroccan painter Abdel Amzil in 1994 and had two sons, now aged 8 and 6.
The Times newspaper reported that she turned to drugs after her marriage failed, was evicted from her Camden home, and had been convicted of prostitution.
Mr Tattersfield said British police were expected to interview Bridgette MacClennan's family.
The ministry could have details of her links with New Zealand by the end of the week.
The tramp who found pieces of Bridgette MacClennan also recovered the severed legs of missing prostitute Elizabeth Valad, 29, as he rifled through a bin in Camden.
Elizabeth Valad's torso was found wrapped in a plastic sack at the bedsit of a former Australian, Anthony John Hardy. Police seized a hacksaw, but have yet to find either woman's head, hands or feet.
Hardy, 51, was charged with killing the women before December 31, and a third woman, Sally White, before January 21 last year.
All three women were thought to be prostitutes.
Hardy has also been questioned about the hacked-up remains of two other prostitutes found in England during the past two years.
The Herald has been unable to find any relatives of Bridgette MacClennan in New Zealand.
New Zealand police spokeswoman Sarah Martin said there had been no requests through Interpol to trace relatives.
The unemployed Hardy appeared in court for seven minutes on Monday.
He was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey this coming Monday.
TONY HARDY, the man accused of murdering prostitutes and dumping their dismembered bodies in dustbin bags, appeared in court yesterday as police named a third alleged victim.
She has been identified by DNA records as Bridgette Cathy MacClennan, 34, a prostitute and drug addict who came from New Zealand and used a number of aliases.
Mr Hardy is accused of murdering Miss MacClennan and Elizabeth Valad, 29, at the end of December in his flat in Camden, North London. Parts of their dismembered remains were discovered by a tramp in bin-bags and wheelie bins near Mr Hardy’s flat.
He is also accused of killing a third prostitute, Sally Rose White, in her thirties, whose naked body was found in a locked room at Mr Hardy’s flat in January last year.
Hywel Ebsworth, for the prosecution, told Hendon Magistrates’ Court that the case involving Miss White was originally discontinued last year after an inquest. It was now being reinvestigated.
Mr Hardy, 51 and unemployed, was flanked by two officers as he stood in a glass- fronted high-security dock at the court in North London. During the seven-minute hearing in the small Edwardian courtroom, Mr Hardy confirmed his name and address and then gave his date of birth.
Mr Hardy, a tall bespectacled figure, was then asked if he was aware that he was being legally represented. He replied: “So I am.” He nodded his head as the murder charges were read out.
As the three magistrates listened to legal discusssions Mr Hardy sat blinking occasionally and puckering his brow as he concentrated on the hearing.
Elaine Needham, for the defence, told the court that she was not applying for bail and agreed that his case could be transferred to the Old Bailey for a preliminary hearing on January 13.
Mr Hardy was remanded in custody by Giovanni Fabrizi, the chairman of the bench.
Miss MacClennan was a single mother and the daughter of a civil servant. Her two sons, aged eight and six, are now understood to be in local authority care.
She is thought to have turned to drug abuse after the break-up of her marriage. Last night, after detectives broke the news to Miss MacClennan’s family, they began to check on the details of hundreds of women whose disappearance has been registered with Scotland Yards’s National Missing Persons Bureau.
Vice squad officers are also questioning prostitutes and brothel-keepers across the capital to ask whether they are aware of the disappearance of any women in their twenties, thirties or forties.
Forensic science experts, meanwhile, are continuing to scour a ground-floor council flat in Camden, North London, where some of the women’s remains were found.
The search, which has continued daily for the last week, is now expected to take a further three weeks, with a large number of DNA tests conducted on items around the flat.
Miss MacClennan is thought to have moved to England as a teenager and settled in London with her father, Roderick, mother and brother.Her mother and brother are still living in the capital, and were said to be distraught after hearing on Sunday night of her death.
Miss MacClennan met her future husband, a Moroccan painter and decorator named Abdel Amzil, when they were both studying in London. They were married at Camden Register Office in 1994.
After the marriage failed, Miss MacClennan was housed on the fifth floor of a tower block in Camden, but was evicted around 12 months ago after drugs squad officers raided the flat.
Miss MacClennan is understood to have had a number of convictions for offences including prostitution.
She was eventually identified when a DNA sample taken from her remains matched one which was placed on the national DNA database after she was convicted of a criminal offence.
One neighbour said yesterday: “She was a tiny woman with bright red hair. I always thought that she was a mature student. Her kids were lovely, but we didn’t know much about her: she was not the sort of woman that you would want to get close to.”
When police first discovered her remains they believed them to belong to a child as young as 14.
Another neighbour said: “Bridgette was one of those people who made out she was better than anyone else and she was well spoken. But her door had been broken down a couple of times by police looking for drugs.
“She would often come home at six in the morning. Most people around here knew that she was on the game.”
"The teenager began inviting friends back for loud parties, however, and was soon evicted. At this point she packed her bags and boarded the InterCity train to London. Ms Valad was soon working in a North London massage parlour called the Body Health Centre, an establishment controlled by Josephine Daly, later to be described in court as one of the country’s richest madams.
The Body Health Centre attracted clients by placing advertisements in, among other publications, Police World, the journal of the International Police Association."
"At this time she is thought to have been living in a series of small flats in the Cricklewood area of North London but by the end of the decade she was to be found in a £1,600-a-month rented apartment in Chelsea.
Karen Summers-Cooke, who lived opposite, recalled: “She was the kind of girl who didn’t keep regular hours. She looked very affluent. I assumed she didn’t work.
“She used to come and go at various times and always seemed to be in a rush. She appeared to come and go with a couple of guys who looked South American or Mediterranean.” Ms Valad’s change of fortune was the result of an encounter with a millionaire whom, she told fellow prostitutes, had agreed to be her “sugar daddy”.
Balbir Sharma, 54, a local newsagent, said that Ms Valad would regularly call in to buy Marlboro Light cigarettes and soft drinks. “She would come in sometimes with a man in his seventies. They seemed to be in some sort of relationship. They seemed comfortable with each other. But I haven’t seen him for a while, and her attitude to life seemed to change, she seemed down in the dumps. Her appearance didn’t really change though, she was always very well groomed.”
As well as paying for the apartment, this man is thought to have funded the extensive cosmetic surgery that Ms Valad underwent in an attempt to make herself more attractive.
She had silicone implants in her breasts and buttocks and an operation to change the shape of her nose. It was the serial numbers on the implants that allowed detectives to identify her dismembered remains. About a year ago Ms Valad fell out with her wealthy benefactor, apparently because she had allowed the father of her child to move into the flat.
Before long she was working in massage parlours once more, and fellow prostitutes say that her use of cocaine began to increase sharply. One woman who worked with her at the Westminster Sauna in Central London, said: “She had always been immaculately dressed in designer clothes. Her shoes cost £400 and her jeans were at least £150.
“But after she left the apartment she got into a downward spiral. She would charge only £50 or so for sex. She may have been mixed up but her life got out of control.”
According to police sources Ms Valad found most of her work during the past 12 months through advertisements in contact magazines, while her daughter wound up in the custody of a former girlfriend of the girl’s father. Ms Valad’s mother repeatedly pleaded with her to give up prostitution and return to Nottingham.
https://www.crimelibrary.org/serial_killers/predators/anthony_hardy/
Sally White
"The woman was later identified as Sally Rose White, 38, a prostitute from the Kings Cross area, who was known to have an addiction to crack cocaine. The Daily Mail suggested that Sally suffered from brain damage and behavioral problems caused by a birth-related spinal cord injury. It was believed that her condition, which worsened with age and lack of treatment, coupled with her addiction to drugs resulted in her heart attack. However, her death from natural causes would later be questioned when the remains of other women were discovered in Hardys flat."
Elizabeth Valad
"Bob Graham suggested in a September 2003 article in The Scotsman, that Elizabeth was a rebellious woman who lived a wayward life from as early as her teens. Born in Nottingham, England, in 1972, Elizabeth was the only child of Iranian professor Hassan Valad and his British wife Jackie. The couple lived a short while in America. Yet, the marriage broke up when Jackie decided to return with Elizabeth back to Nottingham. At the time, Elizabeth was about one year old.
Jackie was quoted in Grahams article saying that her daughter was a very difficult child who mixed with the wrong people as a teenager. She further stated that Elizabeth dropped out of school and moved to London by herself at age 16. From that point there was little contact between the two.
It was further reported in The Daily Mail that Elizabeth worked in a massage parlor where she became involved with a married millionaire, who set her up in an expensive apartment and provided her with luxurious gifts. After some time, she moved out and started to date other people. The article stated that she began to take crack cocaine and went back to prostitution to fund her lifestyle. Her addiction eventually led to her death. Hardy was thought to have played upon his victims vulnerabilities by luring them to his flat with the promise of money or drugs.
It was Elizabeths torso that was found at Hardys residence and her legs that were discovered by the homeless person in the bin. It was difficult for investigators to identify her initially because her hands and head were never found. However, they were able to obtain a positive ID on her by processing the serial numbers found on her breast implants.
Brigitte MacClennans
"Brigitte MacClennans identity was revealed on January 6, during a brief hearing at a Hendon court where Hardy was charged with the murders. Brigitte, whose torso and other body parts were found in garbage bins, was identified through her DNA. Like Elizabeth, her head and hands were never found.
According to a Tahira Yaqoob and Michael Seamarks January 2003 article in The Daily Mail, Brigitte, a native New Zealander and mother of two boys, worked as a prostitute in Camden. The money she earned from selling her body was mostly used to finance her crack cocaine addiction. Hardy was believed to have been one of her customers, which is how she ended up in his flat. The article suggested that Brigitte was murdered on or before December 30, 2002, at around the same time Elizabeth was killed."
Dr. Freddy Patel was involved in another attempted cover up. Ian Tomlinson who was a G20 protestor in April 2009 was murdered by MET Police but stated his death was due to a hearth attack. He ended up being permanently suspended from practicing in 2012 and was also suspended for four months in 2011 for the intentionally botched post mortem examination of Sally White which led Anthony Hardy to commit two additional murders as mentioned above. There was also another three month suspension where Dr. Freddy Patel was removed from the official register of approved forensic pathologists.
https://projectsheffield.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/getting-away-with-murder-the-death-of-ian-tomlinson/
"The inquiry into Tomlinson’s death was deliberately botched- the pathologist who first examined him claimed that he had died of a heart attack, Dr Freddy Patel has now been suspended following irregularities in four other post-mortem examinations. Two other pathologists who examined the body found that he had died as a result of ‘blunt force trauma’. Incredibly the discrepancy between the first report and the second two was cited by Keir Starmer as one reason for not proceeding with criminal charges. The idea that the Met simply got a bent pathologist in as part of a cover up doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.
"Of course there may never have been a second pathologists report if further evidence of Ian’s treatment at the hands of police hadn’t emerged. Footage of a man shuffling away from a line of police with his hands in pockets was given to the Guardian newspaper. It clearly shows a riot cop stepping up behind him , hitting him round the legs then pushing him over. Another perhaps more subtle thing the film shows is the absolute indifference of the other officers. They don’t even glance around, this is business as usual. And SchNEWS knows that this kind of casual dishing out of violence is completely normal for police in this situation. This time however it was caught on film."
"Last year, Dr Patel was given a four-month ban for dishonesty and omitting key findings after examining the body of a murder victim who he said had died from natural causes.
Sally White, who was murdered by Anthony Hardy in north London in 2002, had injuries which included a bite mark and a head wound. Hardy went on to murder two more women later that year.
Dr Patel also served a three-month suspension for failings in other cases and had been removed from the official register of approved forensic pathologists.
"Mr Horwell said: ‘In light of that conclusion, the police had no choice but to agree that no further action could not be taken against the defendant in connection with her death.’"
crazy! obviously more to the story here and why they didn't charge him. unfortunately we will never know