A Jack-the-Ripper-style killer has been jailed for more than 25 years for the murder of a pregnant woman he was cleared of killing 30 years ago.
David Smith, 67, murdered escort Sarah Crump, 33, in 1991 and went on to kill another sex worker Amanda Walker, 21, eight years later.
Mr Justice Bryan on Friday handed him a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years minus the 479 days he spent on remand in the 90s, meaning he will serve at least 25 years and 251 days.
Smith, wearing dark glasses with his head bowed, showed no emotion as he was branded a “sadistic sexual killer” and a “habitual and dishonest liar”.
“I must sentence you for this abhorrent murder which was, I am sure, both sexual and sadistic in nature,” the judge told him.
“I have no doubt your pre-meditated and planned intention that night… was to kill and sexually mutilate an escort to satisfy your perverted and sadistic sexual desires,” he added.
Smith bragged he had “got away with it” after he was cleared of murdering Ms Crump, a chiropodist’s secretary who made extra money working as an escort, in 1993.
The lorry driver had also carried out rape attacks on two other women and went on to kill Ms Walker in 1999.
An Old Baily judge found Smith guilty of Ms Walker’s murder later that year but Ms Crump’s family were left seeking justice for three painful decades until Court of Appeal judges ordered a retrial.
He showed no emotion when he was finally convicted of the crime after less than three hours of deliberation at Inner London Crown Court on Thursday.
Ms Crump’s older sisters Joanne Platt and Suzanne Wright attended court for the verdict and said in a statement: “At long last justice for our lovely Sarah. If only mum and dad were here with us today to share this momentous occasion.
“Thirty years may have passed but we still miss Sarah. She was a shining light in a murky world who wished for the best but found the worst in humanity.”
During Ms Crump’s original Old Bailey trial, her mother Pat Rhodes warned that she believed Smith would kill again.
But he thanked the jury when he was allowed to walk free after his defence counsel accused police of incompetence and suppressing evidence.
Police emphatically denied the defence allegation and said they were not looking for anyone else.
Both Ms Crump and Ms Walker were mutilated by Smith, who was known to colleagues as the “Honey Monster” or “Lurch” because of his 6ft 3in height and heavy build.
Smith killed Ms Crump at her west London flat in Southall in the early hours of August 29, 1991.
She was said to have lived a double life as an escort while working at Wimbledon Hospital following a previous job as a psychiatric nurse.
Loner Smith, then 34 and living with his parents in Middlesex, had arranged to meet her at the one-bedroom flat during his week off work.
Her naked body was found “brutally mutilated” with marks similar to the surgical scars of a woman Smith had become “obsessed with” but “rejected his attentions”.
In Smith’s latest trial, jurors heard while on remand awaiting trial for Ms Walker’s murder, he boasted to another inmate he had already faced trial for murder at the Old Bailey but had “walked”.
“He said that they got no evidence on him and that he got away with it,” the prisoner said.
His case was referred to the Court of Appeal and was sent for a fresh trial following a change in the law on double jeopardy in 2003.
He denied a single charge of murder but failed to give evidence.
Prosecutor William Boyce KC told the jury how Ms Crump’s murder was part of his “escalating pattern of violent and sexual offending against women” dating back to his teenage years in the 1970s.
He said Smith developed “fascinations and obsessions” with some of the women he paid for sex and had allegedly tried to rape an escort just 10 days before the killing – he was acquitted of attempted rape at the Old Bailey.
Jurors also heard that Smith raped a young mum at knifepoint in 1976 and falsely imprisoned an unknown woman in a car around 10 years later.
It was said he also regularly used sex workers and had visited Ms Crump’s flat to pay for sex using a false name, “Duncan”.
Mr Boyce said the killing “bore a number of similarities” with the murder and mutilation of Ms Walker whose body was found in a shallow leafy grave near the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley in Surrey – a spot notorious for couples meeting to have sex – nearly six weeks after she disappeared.
After Smith was found guilty of the murder, Ms Crump’s mother said: “Nothing will bring Sarah back, we know that, but we feel there has been unfinished business while Smith has been free.
“I truly believe Smith to be guilty of the murder of my daughter Sarah. I said at the trial that he would kill again.”
The 2005 inquest of Dr Harold Shipman heard how Smith had regularly played cards with the serial killer GP while serving his sentence at Wakefield Prison.
More follows on this breaking news story…..