The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 3

HOME NEWS: THE DENNIS NILSEN CASE Nick Davies on fSf the dreary pen-pusher who played with his victims' 'living nightmare' corpses in his own Victorian world of murder behind lace curtains baffled by his own success Simpson (left), who spent several days with Nilsen and Stottor, who survived an attack in which lie was strangled a complaint, said it was too much trouble, and withdrew it. By the time he was arrested Nilsen 'had lost count, of how many victims had escaped seven, he thought. Police now have to face the fact that three people tried to tell- them that they had been attacked, and a 10-year-old complained of indecent assault. In the end they had a murder inquiry which ran 'from back to front, starting with the culprit and only then finding out about the killings through his confession. Eight' of his 15 victims' remain unidentified.

In four cases. Kenneth Ockenden, Martin Duffey, Billy Sutherland, and Stephen Sinclair Nilsen knew their names. The other three have been identified by police inquiries Malcolm Barlow 'from the records in the hospital to which Nilsen said, he had been taken with epilepsy, a few days before he was killed Graham Allen from dental records after his name was thrown up- by Soho rent boys who told police that they had not seen him for some time. John Howlett was initially known only as John the guardsman." Police searched through military records and got nowhere until one officer had the inspired idea of checking the records at West End Central police station to see if anyone called John had been repeatedly stopped in the street, as a vagrant would, and was not stopped again after March 1982. Mr Howlett's name came out.

His claim to be a guardsman turned out to be false. impending trial meant that police could not release Nilsen's descriptions of his eight unidentified victims for fear of creating some kind of prejudice. As newspapers reported them over the past two. weeks, a special squad has been working at Hornsey police station, collating the dozens of inquiries they have provoked. be found.

The police told Mr Stewart that they contact him the next day at his brother's house. They did not. Mr Stewart lost interest, and when the. police did contact the brother he did not know where Mr Stewart was. Another year passed and Nilsen's toll had risen to 11 when he attacked Paul Nobbs, a London University student, strangling him into unconsciousness and then, on his own account, having a change of heart and reviving him.

Mr Nobbs never reported the incident. Six months arid one more victim later, Carl Stottor survived an attack in. which he was strangled and nearly drowned by Nilsen. He, too, decided not to mention it. One of the factors in their extraordinary decision seems to have been their homosexuality.

They felt that the police would not treat them seriously. They just wanted to forget the incident. A second, more -peculiar factor was that in both cases the attack was so weird so totally unexpected and unexplained that they could scarcely believe that it had happened. Mr Nobbs decided that the marks on his neck must have been made by a mugger, even though he had not been mugged Mr Stottor half-believed Nilsen's story that he had got tangled up in a torn zip on a sleeping bag and then had a nightmare so that he had to have his head ducked in cold- water to bring him out of shock. The unreality of the attack is reflected in the experience of a Japanese student who was attacked by Nilsen after they had been drinking in his flat on New Year's Eve, 1982.

Nilsen stalked up to him with a tie stretched between his fists the Japanese student thought he was playing, and pushed him away. It was only on' the second' attack, with Nilsen muttering disgusting, disgusting," and tightening his grip, that there was a struggle and the student ran out of the house. He went to the police, made hit-men or as one detective said. But the man's quiet facade is not enough to explain how he got away with it for so long. His own suggestion that he was quasi-Godlike is a curious echo of a comment by Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, to the effect that he had survived detection because God was helping him and obstructing the police.

The two men are similar in some ways particularly in the sheer, scale of their killings. They were also committing their offences at roughly the same time Sutcliffe killing 13 women between 1975 and 1980, Nilsen killing 15 men between 1978 and 1983. The striking difference between them is the way in which their communities reacted. Sutcliffe's offences cast a cloud of anxiety over women in cities all over the country, and there was a public outcry at the failure of the police to catch him. Not so with Nilsen.

In the middle of the largest city in the country, apparently hemmed in by all the bureaucracy of the welfare state, all the safety nets of voluntary agencies, all the vigilance of the Metropolitan Police, all the claustrophobia of urban life, 15 young men vanished into Dennis Nilsen's secret world, and nobody noticed. The reason why nobody knew that Nilsen was killing was that nobody, except Nilsen, knew that any killings were going on. Thirteen of the 15 he killed were never even reported missing. One of the victims, Billy Sutherland, was reported missing to the Salvation Army by his mother months after his death. Only, Kenneth Ockenden, a 23-year-old Canadian tourist, was listed with police, who could do little more than seek publicity in the hope that it would yield some information.

Sitting in Melrose Avenue DENNIS Nilsen was baffled 'by his own success. Constantly, expecting to be caught, he could not understand why he was still at liberty. "I was In a quasi-' Godlike role," he reflected laten. "I thought I could do anything I wanted. While this was going on there were people upstairs and people next door, and nobody knew." Nobody knew, or even suspected, because Nilsen not only possessed all the trappings of a thoroughly normal suburban life, he was positively dreary, the least eyecatching man in the crowd.

That is one of the reasons why his case has been so fascinating. For years he has lived in the red-brick maze of northwest London, a neatly turned out middle-class chap, catching the Tube to work, pushing a pen for the Department of Employment, catching the Tube back home, taking the dog for a walk, closing his front door on the world, and-minding his own business. It was not only his neigh-hours who saw him without noticing him. Most of those who worked with him or drank with him were bored by him his endless rambling about the Civil Service unions, his opinionated speeches about politics, and his feeble jokes Garcon, do you have frog's legs Then hop over here and get me a drink." And yet this dull, meek figure was, as one psychiatrist put it, a living nightmare," killing sometimes once a month, living and playing with the corpses of his victims in a secret world of the most grotesque squalor, which he never betrayed for a moment to the outside, world. In that sense he is a throwback to the Victorian world of middle-class murderers, strangling and poisoning behind lace curtains more frightening in a strange way than a modern murder, which has guns and decided that they did not want their child to go through.

the ordeal of being a witness in court, and withdrew the complaint. In the next 13 months Nilsen killed seven more times before, in November 1980, he allowed a victim. to escape again. Douglas Stewart, who was to be a witness at' the Old Bailey trial, woke to find that Nilsen had tied his feet together and was trying to strangle him with his own tie. Mr Stewart wrestled him the floor, and subdued him.

Nilsen then snowed extraordinary resourcefulness suddenly shouting, Take my money, take my money," so that others in the house would hear him and support him if he told police that Mr Stewart had attacked him to rob him. Mr Stewart left and returned with an inspector and a constable from Kilburn. Nilsen told them that he and Mr Stewart were gay, and had had a lovers' tiff. Mr Stewart's tie was nowhere to police, and so their disappearances remained unreported. With the death of his victims unremarked by the outside world, it was easy for Nilsen to get away with murder.

What ought to have been much more difficult was to get away with attempted murder, where the victims of his murderous attacks survived to complain or report him. Nilsen had killed only once when in October 1979, he attacked a Chinese male prostitute, Andrew Ho, who was asleep in his flat. Mr Ho woke to find Nilsen trying to strangle him, hit him across the head with a candlestick, and escaped. He complained to the police and then, perhaps because he was afraid of his background being brought out in court, he withdrew the complaint. At about this time a 10-year-old boy in Cricklewood told his parents' that Nilsen had indecently assaulted him.

They complained to the police at Kilburn, but then 'We can't classify him. We don't have the classifications for such a weirdo. He was a freak among freaks' in prison letters DENNIS Nilsen -wrote a number of letters to the Guardian's Diarist, Alan Busbridger, after two items about him appearedM the column. The following are edited extracts. arrived out of the blue in mid-April, about 10 weeks after he had been arrested.

It was from Brixton Prison and he wanted to tell me off. For a start, 1 had spelled Dennis with only one And then I had said his name was on a list of SDP members in Muswell Hill. Please make some attempt," he wrote, "to keep up the usual standards of accuracy in the Guardian. You should not abuse your monopoly on quality newspapers. For me to turn to the Telegraph or Times would be improbable to the tabloids, impossible." There was a PS There are three kinds of victims in Thatcher's Britain a) victims of criminal acts b).

victim of accidents; and the largest group c) victims of 'cash limits Nilsen wrote three more lengthy, closely scrawled letters over the next five months, not all so condemnatory in tone. May 31 "When I pen these lighter reflections, never forget the serious underlying nature, of the charges against me. I cannot reflect any public attitude to these at this time apart from a personal inner grief at the scope and enormity of their traumatic content I fight daily to maintain some semblance of humanity under the dark ominous cloud of uncertainty and a massive introspection at all events of my past life." (He talks of the sensational books that may be published after his trial.) I cannot myself see the Guardian making any bold announcement that they have discovered the 4 Genuine Nilsen Diaries, "I will not be voting in the forthcoming election. The electorate has a very poor choice of parties in these power-hungry times. What the people are really being asked is to choose one of the avlalable lying, set of brl-eands in dictate to them The people must know that their execution is neigh (sic) and they are merely being asked to choose the method of their own execution, i.e.

hanging, shooting or drowning The trouble with elections is that the politicians always get in. June 28 He complains of conditions in Brixton grow a lot of vegetables When it comes to tragedy, England always can be relied on to stage a really big one." (He goes on to discuss Kate Losinska, president of the CPSA). She has little sense of humour. She is to activists what Mary Whitehouse is to orifices. My personal maxim is that 'a red under the bed ain't half as good as one in the "I seem to have become public property so it seems that I am totally at the disposal of the mob.

I even forgive Private Eye for all its past (and future) liberties and excesses. I have had lovehate relationship with that mag for many years. They have given me so much and it may be 'just' for them to take from me in equal measure." August 18 "I am now moved from the hospital to a wing of the prison which houses those of a mainly psychiatric disposition. It is about as exciting as a fortnight in the Black Hole of I have not been in a very good state of spiritual morale lately My views on Justice have changed a lot since I have been under the influence of Brixton Prison. "Since my early days of arrest I have now become quite broken in spirit (and that has nothing to do with the case itself.) My notoriety seems to attract all the wrong kind of people for all the wrong reasons.

Everybody wants to knock down a guy with a 'big reputation' in the hope that some of It washes off -on them and their frigid lives. The trouble with this country is that there are too many people living on dreams, fiction and myths. Yours' sincerely, Des." Below The start of HUM I ft. Two who escaped: Trevor came to no harm, and Carl early in 1980, Dennis Nilsen watched Shaw Taylor on Police Five relay the police appeal for news of Ockenden. The young Canadian was at that moment lying dead under the floorboards under Nilsen's armchair, and the police gained no clues from their appeal.

The crucial step that Nilsen took with each victim to dispose of the body. A basic ground rule for an overworked police force is that if there is no body there is no murder Nilsen's second layer of insulation was provided by his choice of victims most of them young, homeless, down-and-out homosexuals grubbing a living from the rent-boy scene in Soho and' the End of London. Most of them had no fixed abode from which their absence would be noted, no close family to worry about their whereabouts their friends in the world of male prositution and drugs were unlikely to approach the Pieces in the jigsaw: Nilsen and (above, from lett) runs through the rest of his attacks. He denied ever' having intercourse with any of his victims, and yet all three survivors of attacks who have been traced by police speak of some sexual Douglas Stewart, who declined Nilsen's invitation to join him in bed Paul Nobbs, who masturbated with him and was strangled as he slept Carl Stotter, who slept with him and recovered from an attack after Nilsen had cuddled his unconscious, naked body. He told police of his decision to kill his seventh victim, a starving young vagrant I had drunk a considerable quantity of Bacardi, and the piece of music I was listening to finished-Incantations by Bick Wake-man and I felt exhilarated.

I was on some sort of high." In this ecstatic state he had killed the boy. But the picture which these images provide of a tormented man killing in an alcoholic haze are confused still further by Nilsen's other faces. There is an arrogant; cruel side to him which kills because people get on his nerves, a grim intolerance which has turned people against him since he was at school. He gave psychiatrists a terrifying description of his attitude people he took DENNIS Andrew Nilsen was born on November 23, 1945, in the harbour town of Fraserburgh in north-east Scotland. He -left school when he was 15, spent 11 years in the army as a cook, and joined the police for a year before becoming a cler with the Manpower Services Commission, where he has worked since May 20, 1974.

Somewhere along that ordinary road, Nilsen became an habitual killer of such extraordinary complexity that the police call him "a freak among freaks," and one psychiatrist said privately We can't classify him. We don't have the classifications for such a weirdo." What singles him out from other multjple killers is the lack of any clear motive, however bizarre. If he had schizophrenic delusions or a hatred for down-and-outs or gays he would start to fit a known picture, but not even he seems to understand. "God only knows what thoughts go through my mind when it is captive within a destructive binge," he told psychiatrists. He is like, a human kaleidoscope a collection of images, some normal and some freakish, which have been splintered and jumbled together so that every time he moves they grind and clash against each other and turn out a different picture.

There is the ordinary image of the man at work Corporal Nilsen, cooking for the Queen's guard at Balmoral or for the detainees at Al Masousa gaol in Aden; Police Constable Nilsen from Willesden Green, so keen that he tried to make arrests when he was off duty; Mr Nilsen, the civil servant handling paper work at the Jobcentre. That image immediately clashes with the private picture of "Des" Nilsen, the guilt ridden homosexual who felt like a pervert and a' criminal, who claimed that he was married and divorced While he was trying to live With his boyfriends, apd who spent more and more time in Soho pubs, picking up rent boys." The clash between the two sides of his character drove him from the army in 1972 when he was rejected by a young soldier, and from the police, where his official digs made gay life impos- one of the letters I)? jsa i a himself (left); and array of murder exhibits, including a copper pot in which Nilsen boiled sible. It made him depressed and withdrawn, but other images in the kaleidoscope are much more disturbing. In one, he suffers from loneliness which so engulfs him that he kills people to stop them leaving him, and then treats the corpse as a friend. He told police that he sometimes left a dead body in a chair while he went to work, "because it is nice to have someone to come home Psychiatrists found fragments of the image in his childhood: the drunken rather, Olaf, who abandoned the family when Dennis was three the adored grandfather, Andrew, who died when Dennis was six, leaving the little boy wandering the streets, looking for him his mother's second marriage, when he was eight, which he resented.

His mother, Betty, who still lives in the council house where Dennis grew up, remembers him being shy and quiet, keeping pet pigeons in an old air-raid shelter, and being distraught when somebody killed them all one day when he was eight. He left the army in November 1972, with his first homosexual' relationships behind him, and without friends. In December he joined the police with warrant No. 164305. In April of the next year he joined the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and started evening work in a gay bar in Camden.

In December he left the force, friendless again. He had a fight with his elder brother, Olaf, who suspected that he was gay, and broke off all contact with his family. The final fragments of his loneliness fell into place in August 1977, when his adored flat-mate, David Gallichan, whom he called "Twinkle," left him without warning, and then in February 1978, when his successor, Steve Martin, left him for another man. Soho pubs became his source of company, but the young men he took home' and drank with had none of his intelligence and few of his interests. "The vast majority of people came and went and there was no further con-tact," he said later.

"It was a standard routine, having a sort of social binge and in the morning there was just me, with an enormous hangover." Psychiatrists suggest that after 10 months of this lonely bingeing, culminating with a Christmas spent, as usual, alone and without presents, the pent-up pressure of a lifetime of desertion!) erupted in the first killing. His victim was a teenager he met in his local, the Crick-lewood Arms. He told police he was afraid that the young man was "just another ship passing in the night," and the pathetic, bizarre image of a killer, moved by, loneliness ana ur jonn uiaciveiui aim uwcj the heads of some victims; (uucm-c jjajtiuamaia; spect of his body, and very drunk. John Howlett was a drinking companion whom he had met and left unharmed on previous evenings before the night in March 1982 when the picture changed. Angry and drunk, he strangled and drowned him, telling the corpse It's about, time you went." There was the same erratic mixture of motives in his treatment of the corpses.

Often they' were a source of pleasure as objects for masturbation and as a means of expressing his cruel arrogance leaving bags of intestines at a bus stop, and in a park where unsuspecting pedestrians would find them. They also frightened him, and he had trouble persuading himself that he would not be haunted by their ghosts. He brought his clinical efficiency to bear: "The victim is the dirty platter after-the feast, and the washing up is a clinically ordinary task," he wrote in prison. Even during his trial the kaleidoscope was turning and throwing him into confusion, so that while he insisted for the most part that he was sane and wanted to go to prison, he allowed his lawyers to fight. for him to go to a special hospital, which he feared.

He expects to locked' up for the rest of hif Mr Alan ureen (prosecuting back to his flat. They would sit down. I would talk incessantly like an auctioneer. Outpourings about music, politics, Margaret Thatcher etc, all completely cynical. If they entered into it, they would be OK.

If they were sleeping, they would be dead already. It was the. ultimate, reply to apathy." Alongside this arrogance and cruelty was another quite contradictory image, which his mother dwells on He was always -concerned with poor people and, even when he was a little boy; he used to play with the ones who were very poor. He used to come in from school with birds with broken wings and ask me for a box with some cotton This side of him survived to make him a tireless official of the Civil and Public Services Association, one of the activists who organised the picket of Garners steak houses in 1979. And he was often genuinely helpful to young down-and-outs, giving them food and a roof and leaving them quite untouched and unharmed.

In a letter to police he speculated on his motive. "It may be a penverted overkill of my need to help people victims who I decide to release quickly from the slings and arrows of their outrageous fortune, pain and None of the images alone explains his behaviour, but each colours and intensifies the other. Together, they slot and click into each other, sometimes producing the harmless Des and at other times the irrational killer. The picture is always erratic and unstable. Nilsen took dozens of people back to his flat and never laid a hand on most of them.

He met the epileptic Malcolm Barlow in the street outside his house and got him an ambulance when Barlow returned a day later, looking for a meal, Nilsen tried to turn him away; but later on the evening, the picture changed perhaps the drink or the music, or some necrophiliac fantasy, or the Irritation of Barlow's collapse, or all of these things and he strangled him. When he killed his last victim, Stephen Sinclair, In February 1983, there was the loneliness that sent him looking for company, the fantasy of sex with him he admitted masturbating by the corpse the pity for a homeless young junkie, and the drunken ecstacy: "I can re member power and images, and I know I must have killed him." He killed Kenneth Ockenden because he was disillusioned at the prospect of his leaving, angry at his monopolising his stereo headphones, aroused at the pro One final, fractured image has helped to form. the picture the calm, efficient, well-organised automaton who kills his victims and disposes of their rotting bodies with the air of an overworked civil servant going about his duties. This was the man who lost track of how many bodies he had stored under his floorboards, and told police I didn't do a stock check," who wormed about catching diseases from the corpses and asked What can you do You have got to take the risk. I couldn't ask anyone else to do it." It was just a task, which had to be completed.

Faced with' the nuisance of John Howlett slipping uninvited into his bed and going to sleep, he decided to kill him. Faced with the problem of Malcolm Barlow collapsing from epilepsy and the effects of alcohol in his flat, he decided that it would be troublesome to call an ambulance, and so he killed him to make matters simpler. When bodies started to rot and smell under the floorboards he brought them up, dissected them, and wrapped the remains into plastic bags with air fresheners. "The smell was grossly unpleasant, and in some places there were colonies of maggots," he recalled. But he got on with the job..