By DENNIS RICE and ANDREW WILKS

Last updated at 23:34 26 January 2008

The man behind the violently pornographic website linked to the murder of teacher Jane Longhurst is still making his sickening films - in a Milton Keynes flat.

Four years ago, The Mail on Sunday effectively shut down a grotesque site which sold images of "extreme pain, asphyxiation and forced sex", after it drove pervert Graham Coutts to rape and strangle the special-needs teacher.

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But today we can reveal that wealthy Dutchman Frans van der Hulst is still peddling his "snuff" images on the internet, churning out sick footage for thousands of subscribers.

We also discovered the Milton Keynes flat where he illegally shoots some of his films, which could land him with a three-year prison term. But when confronted by The Mail on Sunday, Van der Hulst remained unrepentant about his vile activities.

This newspaper previously shut down his website hangingbitches.com, after lobbying the companies that allowed him to accept credit-card payments.

Coutts had logged on to the site, which featured an image of a screaming woman with a clear plastic bag pulled tightly over her head on its homepage, the day before killing 31-year-old Miss Longhurst.

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However Van der Hulst continues to operate a raft of similar sites, charging subscribers £25 a month to view pornographic images of asphyxiation, strangulation and hanging.

The introduction on one site boasts that the footage is all made by Van der Hulst's own company, 3Fall Productions.

It says: "We have exclusive breath control play action. Also we show BDSM [bondage, discipline, dominance and submission] and ropeworks. Not the same old material you will see on every site, but fresh and exclusive material made by ourselves."

One of the British models paid £350 a day to act out the sick fantasies said: "One of the reasons why Van der Hulst films here in the UK is because he has so many subscribers here - and models here are prepared to do the work."

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One site alone has more than 3,000 members, according to an insider at the internet service provider.

"That adds up to a lot of money," the model added. "But the downside is that they want more and more new footage. That is why they are churning this stuff out every couple of weeks."

The venue for the UK filming is an £180,000 luxury flat on the eighth floor of the trendy Hub development in the centre of Milton Keynes, just a few hundred yards from a police station.

It is rented from a local businesswoman by 23-yearold glamour model Faye Pilgrim.

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Last week the Southampton-born brunette, who also stars in some of the films, showed an undercover reporter around the flat, which is up for rent.

In one video shot in the apartment last December, entitled Xmas Special, Ms Pilgrim simulates dying with a noose placed around her neck, her face screwed up in pain.

Another shows her with an axe pretending to decapitate another model. Van der Hulst, 54, also appears in the movie, acting out the shooting of various naked women with pistols.

Ms Pilgrim did not dispute taking part in the filming, but said she was unaware that a similar website run by Rotterdam-born Van der Hulst had been linked to the murder of Jane Longhurst.

When we confronted Van der Hulst in his Netherlands home yesterday, he said: "Once again my business is legal.

"Just because it is not morally acceptable to you does not mean it is illegal or criminal."

However, after we spoke to him, the father of two abruptly closed down the site containing the Milton Keynes footage to new members.

And despite his insistence that he was doing nothing illegal, Van der Hulst pointedly refused to answer questions about the footage shot in Milton Keynes.

His silence may be because filming such scenes in the UK contravenes the Obscene Publications Act.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said that distributing or producing the violent pornography is illegal in Britain.

Van der Hulst is making a fortune from his sites, which are run from the United States, Spain and Holland.

He owns a villa and a beach apartment in Gran Canaria, as well as a house in Holland.

He drives a £25,000 Toyota Land Cruiser, and his wife Wilhelmina Jacoba - who is listed as the sole official of 3Fall Productions - owns a sports car.

When we confronted Van der Hulst in 2004, he showed the same lack of remorse over the fact that Graham Coutts had visited his site hours before killing Miss Longhurst.

He said then: "I've read all the criticism but I'm doing nothing illegal.

"Asphyxiation existed long before the internet, and asphyxiation websites were going long before Jane Longhurst's murder. I don't feel responsible for what happened to her."

At the time the Government said it was powerless to stop sites such as hangingbitches.com.

However, The Mail on Sunday successfully lobbied payment services Visa and PayPal to suspend Van der Hulst's account - cutting off his cash supply and effectively shutting down the site.

However, his current sites are made possible by Visa Europe and Mastercard allowing their cardholders to pay for the vile images.

When alerted to the situation, both companies spoke of their commitment to stamping out "illegal activity" but then did nothing about stopping Van der Hulst.

The Visa Europe spokesman said: "We work tirelessly to ensure that our credit cards cannot be used for illegal purposes.

"If we are made aware of any such allegations we will investigate and if the allegations are substantiated we will stop the merchant's ability to accept Visa and pass details to law enforcement authorities.

"However Visa does not act as a moral arbiter and if an activity is legal in a given country then merchants will be able to accept our credit cards."

A Mastercard spokesman said: "We take our responsibility as a corporate citizen very seriously.

"The company does not tolerate the use of its programmes and services for any illegal activities, including the purchase and sale of illegal activities, including illegal pornography."

Van der Hulst uses two American-based companies to process his credit-card payments - Netcash.com and Webstream.net. Neither responded to a request for comment.

Yesterday, the mother of murdered Jane Longhurst spoke of her shock and disappointment that Van der Hulst was still in business - and operating in the UK.

"You always imagine that the girls who agree to appear in these films live abroad and are desperately in need of money," said 76-year-old Liz Longhurst.

"To hear that it's girls here is quite sickening."

Mrs Longhurst has been campaigning for a change in the law that would make downloading violent pornography punishable by up to three years in prison. A Bill to achieve this is currently going through the House of Lords.

Police found the burning body of her daughter in woods near Pulborough, West Sussex, in April 2003, four weeks after her boyfriend had reported her missing.

It later emerged that the 31-year-old was murdered by Graham Coutts, the partner of Jane's close friend Lisa Stephens.

He was jailed for a minimum of 30 years after killing the talented violinist in his flat in Hove and then having sex with her.

Coutts kept Jane's body for a month, at times in a storage unit he had hired under a false name, visiting it every few days until staff there became suspicious of a pungent smell.

At Lewes Crown Court, prosecutor John Kelsey-Fry QC said Coutts was "satisfying a bizarre and macabre sexual fantasy. . . [acting] out for real on the unfortunate Jane Longhurst the fantasies he had fuelled on his computer - the strangling, the killing and the raping."

Mrs Longhurst said: "The new law will make it an offence for people to download these images but unfortunately no one has come up with a means to force the credit-card companies to behave more responsibly and refuse these people the means to operate.

"A police officer told me it would probably take someone else to be murdered because of violent pornography on the internet for society to get the message - I think that says it all."

Last night MPs Martin Salter and David Lepper, who have campaigned for the new laws against downloading violent pornography, demanded action against Van der Hulst.

"We have laws against people peddling this sort of filth here and they must be applied," said Mr Salter.

Mr Lepper added: "I will be certainly pressing for the full power of the law to be applied following The Mail on Sunday's investigation.

"If these despicable films are being made here then those behind them must be stopped."

The Mail on Sunday is making its evidence on Van der Hulst available to Thames Valley Police.