After eight years is this justice for Milly Dowler as Levi Bellfield is charged with her kidnap and murder…?
The family of Milly Dowler was ‘overwhelmed with relief' after former nightclub bouncer Levi Bellfield, 41, was charged yesterday with kidnapping and murdering the schoolgirl eight years ago.
Parents Bob, 58, and Sally, 50, and Milly's sister Gemma, 23, said in a statement: ‘It's very hard to say how we feel after eight long and difficult years. We are pleased that Levi Bellfield has been charged with abduction and murder and hope this will go some way towards providing justice for our darling Milly.'
Bellfield has also been charged with attempting to abduct 11-year-old Rachel Cowles the day before he is alleged to have snatched Milly, 13.
The charges were revealed by senior Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Nigel Pilkington after a six-month review of police files. He will appear at Staines magistrates' court on April 13.
Milly disappeared on 21 March 2002, after calling her father to say she was on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. Her body was found on Yateley Heath in Hampshire, six months later.
The manhunt for her killer sparked a multi-million pound police inquiry and became one of the country's best-known unsolved murders.
Bellfield, originally of West Drayton, Middlesex, was first quizzed by detectives in the case in March 2005. He is currently serving a life sentence for murdering two women. He bludgeoned Amelie Delagrange, 22, and Marsh McDonnell, 19, in south-west London in 2003 and 2004. He was also found guilty of trying to kill Kate Sheedy when she was 18.
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