Bin-bag bodies: Victim identified by breast implants

Detectives were tonight continuing to quiz a man over the murder of two women whose butchered bodies were found dumped in bin bags.

Tony Hardy, 51, was being held at a north London police station after parts of the mutilated bodies were found in his council bedsit in north west London and in wheelie bins nearby.

One of the victims, a 30-year-old prostitute from Nottinghamshire, was today identified by her breast implants. Her head and hands were still missing. She has not been named by police.

Her family was informed by police and was said to be distraught.

The second woman, who is also white and aged in her late teens or early 20s, has still to be identified.

Detectives have not ruled out that there might be further victims and police divers today searched the Regents Canal in north west London.

They are keeping an open mind over other unsolved murders including that of prostitute Paula Fields, 31, whose body was found in the canal in February 2001.

Her body was cut in to six pieces and stuffed in hold-alls. Her head was never found.

Drains at Hardy’s council flat have been searched by specially trained police using remote control cameras and a woman’s black stiletto which he kept on his windowsill was being forensically examined.

A year ago the body of another prostitute Sally White was found in the flat.

The death was initially treated as suspicious by police but a post mortem examination found she had died of a heart attack.

Detectives are also exploring the National Missing Persons database to look for other potential victims.

They have until late evening tonight to question Hardy at which point a senior officer can authorise a 12-hour extension.

If necessary, they will be able to apply to a magistrates court for a further extension tomorrow.

Hardy was held last night near Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital by officers from Scotland Yard’s elite Territorial Support Group.

He is thought to have gone to the hospital to try to get medication for his diabetes.

The previous night he had been caught on camera at University College Hospital, London where he was also trying to get medication.

The murder inquiry began after a tramp found pieces of two human legs belonging to the Nottinghamshire vice girl wrapped in a bin liner at the back of the College Arms pub in Camden, north London, early on Monday.

He took the parts to the nearby National Hospital for Tropical Diseases where staff called police who found seven other body parts in bins and then the vice girl’s torso in Hardy’s flat.

Police had feared for the safety of another woman, Kelly Anne Nicol who was seen with a man matching Hardy’s description in Camden High Street, London on Boxing Day.

But today her family said she was alive and well.

A woman at her family home in High Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire, central Scotland, said she had been in contact since St Stephen's Day.

The woman declined to give her name or any details of Miss Nicol’s whereabouts.

A neighbour of her mother Jacqueline, who asked not to be named, said Kelly Anne had not lived at the house in High Bonnybridge since she left school.

The woman said: “She was a nice lassie, she had lots of friends in the street.

“It was a shock when I watched the television last night and I realised it was her. She’s changed her appearance – she used to be a lot chubbier.

“It’s bad enough reading about these things, but when it’s someone you know, it’s a real shock. There’s so much evil in the world.”

A Scotland Yard spokesman said a number of sightings of Kelly Anne had been reported since a public appeal yesterday.

“Our concerns for Kelly Nicol’s safety have been substantially reduced,” he said.

Hardy has lived in his Camden council flat for three years and was previously staying in hostels.

Born in Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, the son of a miner, Hardy trained as a mechanical engineer and married his wife Judith in London and had four children.

They moved to Australia in the 1970s but the marriage broke down and Hardy returned to Britain and now has no contact with his family.