David Fuller: Double murderer sentenced over more mortuary sex abuse

A former hospital worker who abused female corpses has been sentenced for carrying out further "depraved" acts.

David Fuller is already serving two whole-life tariffs for murdering Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in 1987.

He was also previously sentenced for sexual offences against 78 dead women and girls between 2008 and 2020.

Fuller, 68, from Heathfield in East Sussex, appeared at the Old Bailey earlier where he was sentenced to four years for abusing a further 23 women.

The former electrician abused the women over a 13-year period at hospitals in Kent and Sussex.

Last month he admitted 12 counts of sexual penetration of a corpse and four counts of possession of extreme pornography between 2007 and 2020.

Sentencing Fuller earlier, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said he had no regard for the dignity of the dead, having habitually abused the trust placed in him as a hospital worker.

His victims' relatives had had their memories "sullied and stolen", she said.

"They have been left in a dark place. They have expressed the outrage and revulsion that the women you abused would have felt at your objectivisation of them."

Fuller filmed himself abusing corpses in the mortuaries at the Tunbridge Wells Hospital and the former Kent & Sussex Hospital. He would go into the morgues when other staff had left, often "visiting the same bodies repeatedly", his previous trial was told.

The daughter of one of his victims described to the court earlier how she felt when she found out about the abuse of her mother, saying: "The pain and emotional upset seared through my body like a knife."

Addressing Fuller directly, she said: "David, I want you to know how much damage you have caused, how your sick and twisted behaviour has damaged families like mine.

"I'm pleased you are now being held accountable for what you did only seven hours after she died."

Fuller worked in electrical maintenance at hospitals since 1989, and was at the Kent and Sussex Hospital until it closed in September 2011.

He was transferred to the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury, where the offences continued until his arrest in 2020.

Kent Police said an investigation had led to evidence relating to a total of 101 victims and the latest charges related to the 23 remaining victims, all of whom were deceased adult women. Ten have not been identified.

During his initial trial, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC said Fuller "systematically and repeatedly sexually abused" the bodies of the dead women and girls.

He said they included a nine-year-old girl, two 16-year-olds and a woman aged 100.

Fuller was given two whole-life terms after beating and strangling Ms Knell and Ms Pierce before sexually assaulting them in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells.

He was arrested after advances in DNA testing - and a huge police operation costing £2.5m - linked him to the double killings, dubbed "the Bedsit Murders".

Following his arrest for the murders, a search of Fuller's home revealed he had hoarded millions of indecent images and videos of children and extreme pornography on hard drives, floppy discs, DVDs and memory cards in his loft and spare room.

Two of the drives were hidden in a box, which was screwed to the back of a chest of drawers and placed inside a wardrobe. On these drives officers found footage Fuller had recorded of himself abusing corpses in the morgues.

Libby Clark from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Fuller's actions were depraved, disgusting and dehumanising, on a scale that has never been encountered before in legal history."

Det Supt Ivan Beasley from Kent Police said: "Today's sentencing will mean little to this abhorrent individual, who throughout our investigation has demonstrated no remorse and only a capacity for self-pity."

He said there was no evidence linking Fuller to any other mortuary offences.

The government announced an independent inquiry into how Fuller went undetected until being arrested.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb highlighted the victims' achievements in life, saying one had been a talented skier, one had worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, and others had worked as teachers or in the NHS.

Fuller sat impassively in the dock throughout the hearing and did not react to calls of "scum" from the public gallery as he was sent down.

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