Whole life jail term for 'Camden Ripper

Anthony Hardy was given three life sentences in November 2003 for killing women to "satisfy his depraved and perverted needs".

The case returned to court today following changes in the law on setting the minimum period a lifer must serve before being considered for parole.

Mr Justice Keith, sitting in London, said: "I have decided that Hardy should never be released from prison.

"This is one of those exceptionally rare cases in which life should mean life."

Now 58, Hardy was released from a psychiatric hospital just weeks before he dismembered two of his victims, leaving their body parts in bin bags near his home in Royal College Street, Camden, north London.

Nine months earlier officers had discovered the body of another woman in his flat, but her death had been put down to natural causes.

Hardy pleaded guilty at his Old Bailey trial in November 2003 to murdering Sally White, 31, Elizabeth Valad, 29, and Brigette MacClennan, 34. He had previously denied their murders but changed his plea within minutes of appearing in dock.

Giving him three life sentences, Mr Justice Keith told him: "Only you know for sure how your victims met their deaths but the unspeakable indignities to which you subjected the bodies of your last two victims in order to satisfy your depraved and perverted needs are in no doubt."

No minimum term tariff was set at the time as changes being made to the law following a European court ruling meant that the Home Secretary could no longer decide them.

Hardy's case joined a list of about 700 that had to go back to court for judges – preferably the trial judges – to set the tariffs.

Mr Justice Keith commented yesterday: "These were truly horrific crimes."