The taxi driver Chris Halliwell has been given a full life term for the sexually motivated murder of Becky Godden, almost four years after being jailed for killing Sian O’Callaghan.



Halliwell joins notorious killers such as the Moors murderer Ian Brady and Rose West who will never be released.

Attention will now turn to whether Halliwell, 52, from Swindon, may have killed other women along with Godden, 20, and O’Callaghan, 22.

Following the sentence police repeated that they believed he had killed other women and revealed that they were pursuing other lines of inquiry on other possible offences after calls had come in making further allegations.

Wiltshire detectives will work with other forces and the National Crime Agency to try to find other victims. As a chauffeur and a ground worker, Halliwell travelled the UK so it is feasible there could be victims across the country.

Sentencing Halliwell to a full life term, high court judge Sir John Griffith Williams said he was a “self-centred and domineering individual”.

Sian O’Callaghan and Becky Godden. Composite: Family Handout/PA

Halliwell had smiled at Godden’s family as he was convicted earlier this week. He simply said “thank you” to the judge when he was told on Friday he would never be released and left the dock with his eyes down.

During the sentencing hearing, Godden’s parents, Karen Edwards and John Godden, paid tribute to their “little girl” who went missing in 2003. Both described how during the eight years before her body was found they continued to search for her and buy her presents in the hope she would turn up. Outside court Godden said he still now expected her to walk through the door.

Halliwell was already in the high-security Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire serving life for the murder of O’Callaghan. He picked up the office worker in his taxi after she left a nightclub alone in Swindon, Wiltshire, in 2011, stabbed her in the head, strangled her and left her partially clothed body next to a road in Oxfordshire.

On Monday a jury at Bristol crown court took less than three hours to find him guilty of the murder of sex worker Godden. In January 2003, he had sex with her, strangled her and buried her body in a field in Gloucestershire.

Godden’s murder only came to light after Halliwell was arrested over O’Callaghan’s disappearance. He led police to where he had left O’Callaghan’s body, and to where he had buried Godden’s remains eight years before.

But because senior investigating officer, Steve Fulcher, did not follow the rules over how suspects should be treated, Halliwell initially escaped justice.

Fulcher, who has left the police and now works in Somalia, was not in court to watch Halliwell being sentenced but his wife, Yvonne Fulcher, sat in the public gallery. Passing sentence, the judge said he did not believe that Fulcher had been oppressive in how he interviewed Halliwell.

The judge described Halliwell’s account of Godden being buried in the field by two drug dealers as a “cock and bull story”. He said: “The account in which you advanced so glibly with little or no regard to the truth made no sense at all. I have no doubt that you are a self-centred and domineering individual who wants his own way. You are both calculating and devious.”

The judge said Halliwell was controlling of Godden. “You used her for sex whenever you wanted to, taking advantage of her vulnerability as a drug addict and prostitute.”

Explaining why he was handing him a rare full life term, the judge said: “I am satisfied that there are real similarities between the two murders. The fact that some nine years elapsed between them probably reflects the absence of opportunities.

“I have concluded both murders involved the abduction of the victim and sexual conduct and both were aggravated by the concealment of the bodies. I am satisfied your offending is exceptionally high and satisfies the criteria for a whole life term.”

Speaking after the sentencing, Det Supt Sean Memory, the senior investigating officer in the Godden case, said police had new lines to follow on other murders Halliwell might have committed.

He said: “I’m very very clear that there must be other victims out there whether they are sexual offences or other women that he has taken. The offending behaviour for Becky was cold and calculated. I cannot believe that was his first offence from being a burglar in the 1980s to a murderer in 2003. There is a significant gap in his offending.

“Sian wasn’t murdered until 2011. What happened in the interim eight years? He talked candidly in 1985 about wanting to be a serial killer. I genuinely believe that is a distinct possibility.

“I will now look to review outstanding cases. I appeal to Christopher Halliwell: now is the time to the tell the truth for once in your life. Come forward and speak to me. There will be victims out there, I know.

“I will look to see where the investigation goes. We have had a number of calls to the incident room that have given us more lines of inquiry to follow. I need to take stock. I’m clear what his method is. He likes to abduct women, he likes to commit sexual offences, he likes to kill. He also likes to remove their clothing and bury them. If there are other offences I will pursue them. He has demonstrated how dangerous he is. He has no compassion, he is a callous and cold killer.

“He is an incredibly dangerous man. For me one of the most chilling things is we have testimony of how good a taxi driver he was, how he used to pick up young girls and take them home safely. I need to understand, where’s his trigger? How can he do that one day and then next day decide he’s going to take someone’s life.

“In the mid-80s, while he was in prison for an unrelated offence, Halliwell asked a [fellow prison] inmate how many women you needed to kill before being considered a serial killer.”

In common with many violent sexual offenders, it has emerged Halliwell had a fascination with hardcore pornography, including child abuse and bestiality. Computer search terms he used showed he had an interest in murder, violent sex and rape.

Before rising, the judge praised Godden’s family for their “quiet dignity and courtesy”.

Addressing them, he said: “You have had to live with every parent’s nightmare of a missing child and then the discovery that she had been dead for some years, buried naked in a field.

“You have been deprived of the opportunity we all want, to say farewell to our closest and dearest. And then you have had to live through the criminal processes as Christopher Halliwell was brought eventually to justice.

“There must have been moments when you wondered whether the case would ever be completed. If I may say so, you have behaved throughout with quiet dignity and courtesy.

“I hope that you will feel justice has been done and while that cannot bring Becky back, that may at least bring you some solace. I will include Mr and Mrs O’Callaghan because this trial must have been an ordeal for them as they had to relive the evidence of how Sian died. They too behaved with dignity and courtesy. I pay tribute to you all.”



