By ELIZABETH SANDERSON

Last updated at 12:10 03 March 2008

It was not unusual for the police to turn up at the West London home of Emma Mills and Levi Bellfield.

Emma knew her partner's life was a confusion of grey areas as far as the law was concerned. This time, however, was different.

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Haunted: 'Every day I think about these girls,' says Emma Mills. 'I always thought Levi (Bellfield) was a cheat, a bully and a liar... but I never thought he'd killed anyone'

"It must have been four or five in the morning when they came," says Emma. "The house was lit up with torchlights and I thought he must be in trouble with the police – he'd been in trouble before, for fraud.

"But this was different. There were about 30 policemen with guns, there were dogs – all surrounding the house. They were banging on the door and screaming his name. I thought, 'What the hell have you done now?'

"We were in bed and he turned and he just looked at me and he looked so scared. It was complete fear. I've never seen him look like that before.

"He said, 'I'm sorry,' and then he ran out on to the landing, pulled out a chest of drawers and used it to jump up into the loft.

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Family man: Bellfield with his children Andrew and Anna in 2004

"That's the last time I ever saw him. I went downstairs just as the door flew open and a load of police officers pushed past me calling his name."

Emma knew, of course, that this was serious; that it wasn't about a stolen van or a car-clamping scam. But she did not realise that Bellfield, her partner of nine years and father of her three children, was about to be arrested for the murder of 22-year-old Amelie Delagrange.

Nor did she know just what horrors and discoveries lay ahead of her.

In recent weeks, the British courts have borne witness to three chilling trials. Last month the Suffolk Strangler, Steve Wright, was jailed for life for the murder of five prostitutes, while Mark Dixie was imprisoned for the murder of the teenage model Sally Anne Bowman.

Yet even in such debased company there is something truly shocking about Levi Bellfield, 39, who was last week sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Amelie and 19-year-old gap-year student Marsha McDonnell.

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Bellfield with Emma on her 21st birthday trip to the Waldorf Hotel in 1998

In court, he winked at the families of his victims and then refused to appear to hear his fate. Dubbed the "bus-stop murderer", Bellfield is now the prime suspect in the Milly Dowler case and is believed to be connected to at least 20 other attacks and murders.

For Emma, Bellfield's common-law wife and mother to Anna, ten, Andrew, eight, and three-year-old Beth, it is a knowledge that is almost impossible to bear.

Her story offers a devastating insight into the mind of Bellfield, who could turn out to be one of the most dangerous serial killers in Britain's history.

Speaking for the first time, Emma, 30, has told The Mail on Sunday of Bellfield's obsessive need to control everyone around him.

She explains how he would use a menacing combination of intimidation and charm and how he beat, raped and degraded her throughout their years together. She also reveals the sickening detail of his eventual emotional breakdown.

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Bellfield trying out a powerful bike during a holiday to Tenerife in 2003

Emma had long grown used to her partner's emotional and physical abuse but it was only when the police arrested him in November 2004 that she realised the depths of his depravity.

Pretty and articulate, Emma says: "I always thought Levi was a player. He's a cheat, he's a bully, he's a liar but I never thought he'd killed anyone. Now though, looking back, when the police told me I didn't instinctively say he hadn't.

"I don't think he'll admit to killing anyone. He's not the type to own up to anything. He's a control freak. Levi likes to have the power and control over everything and that includes women.

"Now, I feel such guilt for my children for giving them a father like that. They adore him and they've got to grow up with the knowledge and the stigma of what he's done. And I feel guilt for those girls. Every day I think about them. If I'd only realised, they might be alive."

Emma does not want or expect anyone's sympathy. Yet she, too, was a victim of Bellfield.

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Bellfield was last week sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Amelie Delagrange, left, and Marsha McDonnell

She is not the type of girl you would expect to end up with a man like Bellfield, a 16-stone thug who ran a car-clamping racket.

He was born in Isleworth, West London and his father, a mechanic, died when he was young. He was brought up by his mother, Jean, an overbearing woman who doted on her youngest son and brought him up to believe he could do no wrong. The family boasted of their pure gipsy blood.

Emma was born in Hersham, Surrey. Her father Graham was an insurance broker, her mother Gilly a receptionist.

Graham left home when Emma was young but she had a loving and stable upbringing with her mother. They lived in a pretty Victorian cottage and weekends were spent riding her horse Billy.

After taking her GCSEs at Trinity School in Esher, Surrey, Emma went to Guildford College to train to be a nanny but had to leave after contracting glandular fever.

It was in 1996 while she was still recovering that she met Bellfield, then a bouncer at Rocky's nightclub in Cobham.

She recalls: "Everybody knew Levi. He was a bit of a cheeky chappy and always friendly and kind. I was quite impressed by him. He was very charming.

"One night I'd had too much to drink and Levi said, 'Come on, babe, I'll take you home.' He drove me back and dropped me off at the door and was the perfect gentleman.

"A few weeks later he took me home again and this time we kissed. I was completely obsessed by him. He would leave flowers and notes at my house and was always calling me. He was my first proper boyfriend and he made me feel very special.

"For my 19th birthday he bought me a huge bucket of roses. At karaoke nights, he would sing You To Me Are Everything. Even now, every time I hear it, I think of the one time I was happy, when I believed everything he said."

Within six months, Emma had left home and moved in with Bellfield, who was then living with his Uncle Charlie in a council house in Walton-on-Thames.

"I think that was when I realised that our backgrounds were very different," says Emma. "It was filthy and Charlie and his girlfriend, Bern, didn't sleep upstairs.

"They slept in their clothes downstairs and smoked and drank all day long. When the reality of the place hit me it was quite scary but I loved Levi and it was exciting to be independent."

But in a matter of weeks Emma was to see another side to his personality. She says: "He'd been drinking and we had an argument because I'd asked for Uncle Charlie's help about something without Levi's permission. I was driving him home from the pub and he started hitting me on the side of my face by my left eye.

"Then the car ran out of petrol and we walked the rest of the way home. It was about two miles with him punching and kicking me the whole way. When we got home, I went upstairs. I remember someone trying to pull my trousers down and then the next thing I knew Charlie was throwing a bucket of water over me.

"Levi called his ex-girlfriend Jo and told her to take me to hospital. He told me not to give my real name and I told them I'd been beaten up by a gang of girls. Afterwards, he cried and said he loved me. He was so sorry that I forgave him."

A month later he raped Emma for the first time.

She says: "We'd had a row. I'd been out with friends and he didn't like it. A couple of nights later, we'd been out for a drink. I was driving us home when he ordered me down all these little roads. We got to Walton Bridge and then he got the back of my hair and said: 'You think you're going to get away with the other night?'

"Then he undid the belt of my jeans and said: 'Next time I tell you not to do something, don't do it.'

"Afterwards, I was in shock. The next day I still wasn't speaking to him but then I thought: 'Don't be dramatic, Emma. It can't be rape because he's your boyfriend.' Then I started to blame myself for the argument."

Many will find it hard to understand why Emma didn't leave then. To begin with, she admits, it was a mixture of love and childish pride. Then, quite simply, it was fear.

She says: "I loved him. In between all this, we did have nice times. I know that's hard to believe now but we did. For my 21st birthday he hired a limo and brought me up to London. We stayed at the Waldorf and went to see Saturday Night Fever.

"I knew the relationship wasn't right because he was so possessive. My mum hated him but I was too proud to admit she was right. Then I was too frightened to leave him because I was afraid of what he might do to her.

"By then I knew what he was capable of. I just started to live my life in a way that wouldn't bring that side out, in a way that was acceptable to him.

"About a year after we met, I fell pregnant with Anna. I wasn't happy. He was, though. He had me then. I remember thinking, 'I don't speak to my friends, I don't speak to my mum.' I couldn't leave. I had no money, no job and no one but Levi."

By this time they had moved home to West Drayton.

Emma says: "I desperately wanted to work but I didn't dare ask him. I knew he'd never allow it. Yet in a weird way I thought he protected me."

Such feelings are not unusual in women who have suffered extreme domestic abuse. And Emma's experience was becoming increasingly violent and traumatic.

There is a numb, detached tone to her voice, as she says: "He never hit me again after that first time but sometimes while he was raping me, he would slap me. And he'd always pull my hair and call me a slag and a bitch.

"Once, he raped me outside and then locked me out for about half an hour afterwards with no clothes on. Another time, it was on the stairs and he got a Stanley knife and traced it across my back.

"Afterwards, I'd try and forget it. It was too scary to think about the reality and how wrong it was. It always happened after an argument. It was always: 'Think you're clever now, do you?'

"By the end it was probably happening once every couple of weeks. And he stopped saying sorry the next morning.

"The last time, in about autumn 2001, was the worst of all. He degraded me to the point of utter despair and disgust. It was all night.

"He got a camera out and said, 'I know, let's have more fun.' He started videoing me and made me perform for the cameras. Then he strangled me with my cardigan. I was terrified. I thought he was going to kill me.

"Afterwards he ran me a bath. It was boiling but he said, 'Get in there. Get rid of all the evidence. You know it's my word against yours.'"

Finally, Bellfield had pushed Emma too far. She says: "The next day he was completely normal. I came down and he said: 'Morning, babe.' He went out to work and I rang my mum and said, 'I want to go today.'

"I packed the children's clothes into two bin bags and Mum got me into a refuge."

But by the end of the year, Emma had agreed to go back to him – as long as she didn't have to return to the family home straight away.

Instead, she insisted they rent a flat for a while as a way of creating a fresh start. The flat, in Collingwood Place, Walton-on-Thames, was 30 yards from the bus stop where Milly Dowler was last seen.

Emma says simply: "I believed that he'd changed. And he was true to his word. He never touched me again."

Instead, a terrifying trail of murders, rapes and assaults began in the local area, with Milly's being one of the first. Emma's recollection of March 21, 2002, the night she went missing, now raises serious concerns about Bellfield who, last week, became the prime suspect in the case.

She explains: "We were house-sitting for a friend in West Drayton the day Milly disappeared. It was weird. I was ringing his phone but it was switched off all day. I had no money. I was like, 'He knows I need to go to the shop and where is he?'

"I thought he'd just gone off drinking. He finally came back about 11.30pm.

"The first thing I said was obvious...'Where've you been?' and then I said, 'Why have you changed?' because he'd changed his clothes and he said 'I haven't.'

"He was adamant he hadn't changed. He was drinking, swigging a can of Tennent's lager.

"Then I went to bed and the next thing I knew, he was getting up and it was about three in the morning. I said: 'What on Earth are you doing?' And he said, 'I'm going back to the flat.' I said, 'Why?' He said he wanted a lie-in in the morning. I thought it was a bit odd as we were in a three-storey maisonette so he wouldn't have heard the kids.

"The next day, or the day after, my friend was coming home so I went back to the flat in Collingwood Place.

"When I went in, all the bed was bare. There were no sheets, no duvet, just bare pillows. I called him up and he said the dog had had an accident. I thought the dog wouldn't do that and if he did, Levi wouldn't clean it up.

"Then he told me he'd put the sheets out in the bin cupboard. I went and checked but there was nothing there.

"I thought it was strange but I automatically thought it was another woman. I never thought anything else."

A day or so later, Bellfield insisted they move back to the family home in West Drayton. After Milly's murder, police tried to trace a red Daewoo that was close to the bus stop 25 minutes after she was last seen.

Emma says: "I had a red Daewoo and he had the use of it. He had the car the day Milly went missing but then it got stolen.

"Levi went out with his friends one night and said he hadn't driven the car home because he'd been drinking. I actually thought that was good because normally he didn't care about that. When he went to pick it up the next morning, he said it had gone."

In November of that year, Sonia Salvatierra escaped an attempted attack on her in Twickenham Green. Police have said they are looking at links with Bellfield.

Similarly, they believe he was responsible for a hammer attack on Jesse Wilson on January 8, 2003.

The following month, on February 5, Bellfield killed Marsha McDonnell. The pretty 19-year-old was clubbed three times over the head with a blunt instrument. She died just yards from her home in Hampton, West London.

According to Emma, there was nothing unusual about Bellfield's behaviour after the attack. She says: "He did suddenly announce that we were going to Tenerife. We went to Tenerife three times that year, all last-minute holidays, but that was the only odd thing.

"An acquaintance of his was arrested for Marsha's murder. His mum was talking about it one day and he didn't seem any different. And he loved watching Crimewatch. He'd always watch it if it was on.

"I once found a pair of plastic surgical gloves in his coat but when I asked what they were for, he said it was to do with his clamping. I believed him."

Police are now investigating a further four attacks on women that took place after Marsha's murder and before Bellfield deliberately drove over Kate Sheedy on May 25, 2004. It was only now that there was a noticeable change as he became increasingly erratic.

Emma says: "In July he went really peculiar. He'd rented a flat in Hanworth and would go off all the time. Then he rang me one night and said he was so sorry for what he'd done to me. I thought he meant going off with other women because by then I knew he'd been having an affair with a local girl, Terri Carroll."

Bellfield had always liked to think of himself as a bit of a womaniser. He had had at least two significant relationships other than with Emma. He had four children by barmaid Becky Wilkinson and one child by Johanna Collings. Emma knew about both relationships.

Emma continues: "He was edgy. He'd always had panic attacks but they got much worse. He was clammy all the time and wouldn't come round if it was daylight. He'd ring and say, 'I'm parking now at the end of the road so open the door for me.'

"He'd run along the road with his hood up and if I hadn't opened the door in time he'd practically kick it down. Then he'd go straight upstairs to the bedroom. And he had to have all the curtains closed."

Shortly afterwards, on August 19, 2004, Bellfield killed Amelie Delagrange, a French exchange student

who was bludgeoned to death on Twickenham Green.

It was clear to Emma that he was now unravelling emotionally. She just didn't know why. She says now: "It must have been a few days afterwards that we had a fight. He asked me to turn the radio down and I said no because the children were dancing to it. He got the stereo and threw it over Andrew's head and out of the front door.

"Then he went into the kitchen, smashed it up and went outside. I still ignored him but then every now and then I'd hear a thud from the garden. I thought he must be kicking the wall in temper. Eventually I opened the door and asked Levi what he was doing.

"He came out of the shadows like something out of a horror film. There was blood pouring out of the side of his head. That was what he'd been hitting against the wall.

"Then, in the last week of August, he came round and he looked terrible. He was sobbing and sitting on the bed, rocking. I was worried about him.

"I called his doctor who spoke to Levi and then insisted I get him to the psychiatric ward immediately.

"Apparently, Levi had told him he'd tried to take an overdose days before. And I'd also found some piping which he'd bought for the car.

"I called a friend who took him to Hillingdon A&E. Levi called me from the hospital car park. He was crying and said: 'You'll be burying me in a month. If not, I'll be in prison.'

"I asked why and he said, 'Oh, because of this fraud.' He was always being investigated for fraud or drugs or something. He always had all sorts of scams going.

"He sometimes brought drugs into the house but he never kept them there. To be honest, I didn't really know much about all his different deals. I turned a blind eye. And anyway, you didn't ask Levi questions.

"Then he said, 'Just do me one thing, Emma. Always look after my children and make sure they're all right.'

"That he could say that angers me like you wouldn't believe. He always said he idolised his children. Then how could he do this to these other families?"

Emma adds: "I'm not sure we'll ever be able to understand it. He was a control freak. And I truly think that a lot of it had to do with his upbringing, not that that's any excuse.

"He would never talk about his father, who died when he was eight, but he was very protective of his mum. She was horrible. She's a female version of him...violent, aggressive, possessive and domineering."

Bellfield clearly needed professional help but he refused to stay in the hospital for more than one night.

Emma says: "He made me come and pick him up and then he insisted that we go away for a bit. We went to stay

with a friend in Kent but it was all very cloak and dagger. I had to pretend we were on a caravanning holiday. When we got to Kent, he wouldn't let me go home.

"We were only supposed to be going for a few days but it ended up being a couple of weeks. Still, once we were there he was the old Levi. He obviously thought he was safe."

So much so that when the couple saw a television appeal for information about Amelie, Emma recalls how he turned round and said : "F***ing w****r. I'd like ten minutes with him."

On November 22, Bellfield was arrested for her murder and Emma was left with the heartbreaking task of explaining the situation to their three children.

She says: "My children left the house in their pyjamas and we never went back. At first, I tried to hide it from them. You want to cosset them from everything but that only made it worse.

"They were very, very hurt at the beginning. The nights I've cuddled them and they've begged me to see their daddy. That was when they didn't know what had happened.

"In the end, I told them on the advice of psychiatrists. And after Levi was arrested I started a diary for them so that they know what happened in years to come. I never ever want my children to tell me that I lied to them."

When it came to his own children, Bellfield was a kind and loving father. Emma says: "After Anna was born, he did all the shopping and cooking.

"He'd come home with nice cards with things like 'You're my world' written in them. I've kept some of them to show the children. He loved all of them.

"That's why I can't understand how he could do this to these families. It's as if there are two different Levis.

"As the oldest, I think Anna finds it very hard. She doesn't go to bed at night, she can't be on her own, can't eat properly. She doesn't mention him. She still loves her daddy but doesn't feel that's allowed.

"But she can tell me every minute of every day how much she loves him. To the children he is still their daddy and if they want to see him when they're older, I'll stand by them 100 per cent."

Nevertheless, Emma now has to steer them through a difficult childhood and adolescence as Bellfield's children learn to live with what he's done.

She says: "I do worry for them. And if we were still there with him I'd worry but we're in a completely different environment now. I just hope I'm doing the best I can. They're going to have a different upbringing now. I'm not Levi's mum bringing up Levi.

"They are amazingly resilient. Yesterday Andrew said to me, 'Is Daddy ever coming out of prison?' I said, 'No,' and he said, 'That's good. You can't kill people and come out of prison.'"

And Bellfield never will. Emma has not seen him since the night of the arrest but had hoped she might see him at the sentencing hearing.

She says: "I did feel a bit uneasy because it was the families' thing, not mine. But I admit I wanted to see Levi. I wanted to have the last look. For years he's had the look, the laugh, the say, everything. This was my turn."

Emma was disappointed but not surprised that he didn't show up. "It was the only thing in his power left to control," she says. "That's why he did it."

But if Bellfield can never control Emma again, he has left her a lasting legacy. "I may be free of him," she says, "but I'll always feel guilt for those girls and their families."