Only now can the true extent of Bellfield’s intense loathing and predatory attitude towards women be revealed. The judge in the case ruled that much of the evidence gleaned while Bellfield was a suspect was too prejudicial for the jury to hear.

It included how undercover detectives had watched him sexually insult underage teenage girls at a bus stop and how, while even on remand, he earned the reputation as a "caveman" because of his barbaric attitude towards the opposite sex.

Paul Jarvis, a fellow inmate, said that Bellfield had confessed to killing Amelie Delagrange and had boasted "you can do what you want" to women. "He is like a caveman. He treats women like dogs," Jarvis told police.

In his home town of West Drayton, Bellfield, was renowned for pestering underage girls – invariably thin blondes – and trying to chat them up as he followed them in his Toyota Previa, complete with blacked out windows and a mattress, blankets and a baseball bat in the back.

Born in Hounslow, West London, the son of Joseph and Jean Bellfield, he was of Romany Gypsy descent and one of three sons and a daughter. His father, a motor mechanic, died from a heart attack when his son was just 10 years old.

Bellfield's criminal career — he has convictions for assaults and driving offences — began when he was only 13. By the age of 23 he was jailed for a year for hitting a police constable in the face when he was asked to turn the music down at a house party.

He went on to marry four times and had eleven children by five different women.

Even while married, he singled out teenagers. To some he offered drugs — a ploy which police believe he had tried on at least one of his murder victims and possibly even Milly Dowler — or boasted of his body-building exploits; he had enhanced his physique with steroids. Rejection of his advances could trigger an incandescent rage.

Ricky Brouillard, who had worked for Bellfield, told police that his former boss had even offered to sell sex with his "naïve" girlfriend, 16, and her sister, 14.

"I would describe Levi as an animal," Mr Brouillard told police. "I remember being disgusted. I met his girlfriend on one occasion and he said ’Do you want to buy her off me?'."

Bellfield, who had a tattoo of a boxing devil bearing his name, confessed to one former girlfriend that he would wait in alleyways wanting to "hurt, kill, stab or rape women". She also told police of her horror at discovering in his bin pornographic pictures on which he had slashed the faces of blonde models.

Another one-time girlfriend said in her police statement that Bellfield "had a thing for his 13-year-old cousin" as well as a desire for his lovers to dress in school uniforms.

Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton, who led the inquiry, said Bellfield had a deeply unhealthy interest in the opposite sex, which turned to violence when his advances were rejected.

With access to hundreds of cars through his clamping firm, which operated in Surrey, Oxford, Middlesex and London, Bellfield was able to prowl the streets reasonably confident that he could evade detection.

His immaturity and obsession with his build is evident even in his entry on the Friends Reunited website.

"I feel stupid coming on here. I was short at school and am now over 6ft," he writes, before referring to his wheel-clamping business, adding: "I hope I ain’t clamped you." He continues: "I haven’t grown up. I still think I am 18. I’m out clubbing: Ibiza, Tenerife.

"Doing OK, good laugh, the slippers ain’t out yet. A bit flash, like the labels. Am I sounding a prat????" He closes his message: "Any single girls out there, e-mail me."

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• All that glitters is not sold in Wright’s world
• Believe it or not, Big Brother is your friend