Bodies probe - police get extra time to quiz suspect

Police were today given a further 36 hours to question a man over the murder of two women whose butchered bodies were found dumped in bin bags.

Magistrates granted an application by detectives to continue holding Tony Hardy, 51, at a north London police station.

Hardy was arrested on Thursday night after parts of the mutilated bodies were found in his council bedsit in Camden, north west London, and in wheelie bins nearby.

Yesterday one of the victims – a 30-year-old prostitute from Nottinghamshire - was identified by her breast implants. Her head and hands are still missing.

The family of the woman, who has not been named by police, have been informed by police and were said to be distraught.

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

Detectives have not ruled out that there might be further victims and police divers have been searching 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 holdalls. Her head was never found.

Drains at Hardy’s council flat have been searched by specially trained police using remote control cameras.

A woman’s black stiletto shoe which Hardy kept on his window sill was also 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 showed that she had died of a heart attack.

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

Hardy was detained on Thursday 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.

Officers then found seven other body parts in bins, then discovered 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 yesterday 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.