Nine police forces across the country are examining apparent admissions by the serial killer and rapist Levi Bellfield to the murders, rapes and sexual assaults of young women over several years, the Guardian understands.

Senior detectives hope to know within weeks whether the “confessions” made by 47-year-old Bellfield last year from his cell in Wakefield prison have any truth to them. In a national operation being run by the Metropolitan police, detectives are treating the claims of a man who has lied repeatedly in the past, and is thought to be one of Britain’s most prolific serial sexual killers, with some caution.

Despite repeated denials, Bellfield confessed in interviews with detectives last summer that he had abducted, raped and murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler as she walked home from school in Walton-on-Thames in 2002. His outpouring – after so many years of silence and denials – sparked the nationally coordinated police operation which has been examining and testing his claims.

It is understood that, as well as apparently confessing to sexual crimes against young girls and women, Bellfield implicated other individuals. It was his implication of a suspected accomplice in the abduction and rape of Milly to Surrey detectives in an interview in prison last year that led to the arrest on Wednesday of a 40-year-old man. The man has since been released without charge or further action after Surrey police said no evidence had been found to support the allegations – a health warning, police sources say, about what Bellfield is saying.

“Officers are trying to test what he is saying and will have a better idea in a month or so whether there is any truth to it,” said a source.

It is understood the forces involved in reviewing cases of violent attacks on women and young girls include Greater Manchester, Avon and Somerset, Sussex and Lancashire, areas where Bellfield travelled to in the past.

Bellfield, a former nightclub bouncer, has never before admitted his long history of violent attacks on women.

Dowler was the first of his known victims. He next attacked Marsha McDonnell, 19, who was struck with a heavy blunt weapon as she walked home early in 2003 in Twickenham, west London.

In May 2004 he tried to murder Kate Sheedy, 18, who suffered appalling injuries but survived. Three months later he attacked Amelie Delagrange, a French student, hitting her with a blunt metal object from behind, causing fatal brain injuries.

He was also accused of attempting to abduct Rachel Cowles, 11, the day before Milly’s disappearance.

But detectives have long suspected he is responsible for more crimes – some of which might date back to when he was a schoolboy in west London. The case of his schoolfriend Patsy Morris, 14, who was strangled on Hounslow Heath in 1980, has long been linked to Bellfield – who was a 12-year-old pupil at the same school, Feltham comprehensive. Patsy’s body was found hidden under bushes on Hounslow Heath on 18 June 1980, two days after she disappeared from school during a lunch break.

Some of his past wives and girlfriends have described suffering Bellfield’s sexual violence.

DCI Colin Sutton, who brought Bellfield to justice for the murders of Delagrange and McDonnell, and the attempted murder of Sheedy, said police had evidence that he had abducted and raped five young girls, in some cases with other men involved. One of the victims who was snatched by Bellfield, before being drugged and raped, was sick after the assault and police were able to analyse her vomit, establishing she had been drugged with GHB. But Bellfield was never charged with the offences by the CPS, which decided to pursue the murder cases instead.

At the time of his conviction for Milly’s murder in June 2011, detectives said they believed Bellfield may have been responsible for around 20 unsolved attacks on women. These included the killing of Judith Gold, who was hit over the head in Hampstead, north London, in 1990, and Patsy Morris.

Bellfield is serving his life sentences, with no prospect of ever being released, in HMP Wakefield, home to so many brutal rapists and murderers that it is dubbed “monster mansion” by insiders.

Until last year when he began to talk to the police, Bellfield rarely left his cell. Weighing 127kg (20st) , he refused to come out and often sat crying in fear because he was scared of being attacked by other inmates, the Guardian understands. Prison officers and nurses would stand outside his cell to talk to him.



A few years ago, however, he converted to Islam – something that was officially confirmed by the authorities on Wednesday for the first time. Now known as Yusuf Rahim, insiders at the prison believe he had only converted in order to get protection from other Muslims inside, and to be given better quality food. If Bellfield’s admissions are corroborated, suspicions that he is one of Britain’s most prolific serial sexual killers will be confirmed.

Born in Hounslow, west London, into a Gypsy family, his father Joseph, a motor mechanic, died when he was eight, and as Bellfield grew up with his three siblings, he formed an intensely close relationship with his mother Jean.

Married four times, Bellfield has 11 children by five different mothers – some of whom suffered his sexual violence themselves. While he was married, he would spend his time finding other women for sex, and was known to drive around local streets shouting out at schoolgirls. He also had an empty flat near his home to which he would take prostitutes and other young women whom he is suspected of drugging and raping. He has never before admitted to any of his crimes.

His mother, Jean, still lives in Feltham, west London, and has always believed her son is innocent. “We don’t know why he has started talking now,” said one source close to the inquiry. “It could be something to do with his conversion, it could be because he has to demonstrate he has acknowledged his crimes as part of rehabilitation within the prison system, so he is clearing his conscience, and there could be family issues as to why he is talking.”

His confession to the murder, rape and abduction of Milly while his mother is still alive to hear it has surprised detectives who know Bellfield.

Sutton said: “I never thought he would admit anything until his mother died. He had a strange, very close relationship with her. But he has lied persistently in the past. These ‘admissions’ need to be taken seriously because it would be wrong not to, but there needs to be a healthy scepticism about what he is saying.

“Bellfield is a cold, calculated, manipulative and chilling man.”