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Published: 8th April, 2011
by JAMIE WELHAM

THE sister of a victim of a killer known as the “scalp hunter” has demanded he be forced to reveal the where­abouts of missing body parts of the women he mutilated.

John Sweeney, 54, was told on Tuesday he will never be released from prison after being found guilty of the murders of two former girlfriends. 

Now police believe he may have murdered three other Islington women. 

The remains of Paula Fields and Melissa Halstead were found in canal waters in Camden Town and Holland respec­tively.

But the heads and hands of both women have never been retrieved.

Although the two women died 10 years apart, Scotland Yard were able to link the two murders to Sweeney. 

Detectives fear a further five ex-girlfriends – including three from Islington – whose whereabouts cannot be accounted for, may have fallen victim to the killer at some point since the 1970s.

Police are appealing for information in a bid to discover whether the women are still alive.

The three women are believed to be:

• A Brazilian called Irani, who worked in north London in 1996 and 1997 and was known to visit pubs and restaurants in Highbury and Holloway Road. Irani was in her 40s and may have worked as a kitchen cleaner.
• A Colombian women called Maria who stayed in the north London area in 1997 and 1998. She was in her late 30s at the time and visited pubs in Finsbury and Holloway Road.
• An English woman called Sue, originally from Derbyshire. She also had connections with Holloway as well as Seven Sisters Road during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is thought she attended a nursing college and left the area to work in Switzerland.

The remains of Ms Halstead, 33, were retrieved from a canal in Rotterdam in 1990. Eleven years later, Ms Fields, a mother of three living in Highbury, were found dismembered and stuffed into six duffel bags. This time the discovery was made by boys fishing in the Regent’s Park canal running through Camden Town.

Sweeney, a divorced carpenter who has two children, chose not appear in court to hear Mr Justice Saunders pass sentence on what he described as one of the most exceptional and “wicked” crimes to go before the Old Bailey.

In a victim impact statement, Irene Allahgreen, Ms Fields’ sister, said Sweeney should be forced by law to reveal the location of her youngest sibling’s head, hands and feet.

“[Paula] has been referred to as a prostitute but to us, our family, she was our baby sister,” Ms Allahgreen said.

“For 29 years Paula was a normal girl, a loving mother, daughter, sister and aunt. We know she is never coming back and we never said goodbye. The person who did this should be made to explain the location of the body parts by law. 

“Not understanding where or why is torture every day.”

Passing the whole life term on Tuesday, Mr Justice Saunders said: “Why the killings occurred, I cannot be sure. The defendant is controlling in his relationships with women and, chillingly, that control extends to deciding whether they should live or die. 

“The mutilation of the bodies is a serious aggravating feature of the murders. Not only does it reveal the cold-blooded nature of the killer but it has added greatly to the distress of the families to know that parts of the bodies of their loved ones have never been recovered.”

Sweeney, who lived in Kentish Town, was already serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of another girlfriend, Delia Balmer, a nurse, who he attacked with an axe and knife at her house in Kentish Town in 1994. 

Ms Balmer was too distressed to appear in the witness box at the latest trial.

The jury returned their unanimous verdict after less than 10 hours of discussion. They also found Sweeney guilty of perverting the course of justice for dismembering the body of Ms Fields.

During the five week trial the jury heard of Sweeney’s “possessive” and “controlling” relationships with women. They were told of his “preoccupation with dismemberment” and intense hatred of the police.

He stalked Ms Halstead around Europe after she was deported from London in 1989. They had a “tempestuous” relationship – Sweeney told the jury he loved her – and she predicted her murder, telling her sister just months  before she died that if she ever went missing Sweeney would make sure nobody would find her body.

Though her body was recovered in two duffle bags, her hands, head and legs have never been found.

The prosecution claimed that a note scribbled by Sweeney on the back of a lottery scratchcard was evidence of a confession. The note read: “Poor old Melissa/ chopped up in bits/ food to feed fish/ Amsterdam was the pits.”

A crucial development in the case was the identification of Ms Halstead, which took 18 years. DNA was matched with family members in 2008.

While on the run from police following the attack on Ms Balmer, Sweeney began a relationship with Ms Fields, a former launderette worker who had begun working as a prostitute.

Police seized hundreds of autobiographical artworks from various properties where he lived. The works – one titled “the scalp hunter”, hence his crime book nickname – showed gruesome violence and dismembered bodies, many of them featuring women said to represent Ms Halstead and Ms Balmer.

The defence claimed that the fact both women had been in relationships with Sweeney was a coincidence. 

Defence counsel told the jury the murders could have been the work of two other notorious serial killers: the “Camden Ripper” Anthony Hardy, who was convicted in November 2003 of killing three women in his Camden Town council flat; and German killer Frank Gust, now in jail for the murders of four women in the Netherlands.

In his evidence, Sweeney protested that he had been framed by police, and that he had no motive to wish either girlfriend harm.

Detectives want to trace three women linked to Sweeney. Two are South American former girlfriends called Maria and Irani, who haven’t been seen since the late 1990s. Another is an English woman, also only known by her first name, Sue. 

All three are believed to have worked around Finsbury Park and Holloway Road during the 1990s.

Dutch police will also investigate claims Sweeney shot two German men he caught in bed with Ms Halstead. 

Speaking after the verdict, Detective Chief Inspector Howard Groves, who led the investigation alongside a Dutch cold case unit, said: “I would like to thank the families of Paula and Melissa for their patience and dignity throughout the years, and hope that these convictions will enable them to finally close a chapter in their lives, knowing that justice has finally been served.”

He added: “Sweeney had convinced himself that he would never be caught for these heinous crimes. 

“However, he underestimated the resolve of officers from the Met’s Specialist Crime Directorate, the Rotterdam Cold Case Team, prosecutors in the UK and Holland and the witnesses from across Europe who gave evidence during the trial.

“And as he contemplates a life behind bars, I can assure him that this investigation will continue as we seek to identify and trace other potential victims in the UK, Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, who may have suffered a similar fate to that of Melissa and Paula.”