Britain's worst killers

13 April 2012
Thomas Hamilton

Burst into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane in 1996 and shot dead 16 children and their teacher before killing himself.

Michael Ryan

Gun fanatic who rampaged through Hungerford in 1987, killing 16 people and wounding 11 before shooting himself.

Peter Sutcliffe

Nicknamed the Yorkshire Ripper, he was jailed for life in 1981 for murdering 13 women and trying to kill seven more. The lorry driver from northern England claimed he heard voices from God telling him to murder prostitutes.

Fred and Rosemary West

Rosemary West was found guilty in 1995 of killing 10 women and girls, including her own daughter, whose bodies were found dismembered and buried at their Gloucester home, dubbed the "House of Horrors". Fred West, charged with murdering 12 young women and girls, committed suicide on New Year's Day 1995.

Dennis Nilsen

Jailed for life in 1983 for six murders after a plumber discovered human flesh blocking the drains. The civil servant confessed to killing 15 down-and-out young men at his home in Muswell Hill over five years.

John Christie

Sexual psychopath who was hanged in 1953 after confessing to killing his wife and at least five other women at his London home. The bodies were laid under floors, in the garden and in a papered-over cupboard.

Jack the ripper

Though never caught, he was blamed for the murder of five women in the East End from 1888.

Myra Hindley

Jailed for life in 1966 for carrying out sadistic child murders with her lover, Ian Brady. She was jailed for two killings but confessed in 1985 to involvement in three other murders. Hindley died in November

Beverly Allitt

A nurse at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital who suffered from Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. She administered a series of lethal injections and suffocated children in her care. In 1993 she was convicted of four murders and nine attempted murders and sentenced to 13 consecutive life terms. Allitt is now in Rampton top-security mental hospital in Nottinghamshire.

Robert Maudsley

Has spent 25 years in solitary confinement after killing four people, including two fellow prisoners and a fellow patient at Broadmoor security hospital.

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