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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Dan Warburton & Matthew Young

Cops 'lock down' site where Levi Bellfield claims body is buried amid ghoul fears

Steps have been taken to stop ghouls doing their own search of a nature reserve where Levi Bellfield claims to have dumped the body of a missing student, sources say.

Access codes for the site have been changed after serial killer Bellfield confessed to murdering Elizabeth Chau in 1999 and burying her body there.

Thames Water, which owns the reserve, has stopped applications for new membership and has blocked existing members from taking non-members on the site.

Insiders say the measures have been brought in at Kempton Nature Reserve to deter people from nosing around and trampling the area.

A source told the Mirror: “Every effort is being made to protect the site even if they’re not currently searching it. The last thing they need is people going there to start poking around.”

Thames Water and the Met police declined to comment. The 50-acre site near Kempton Park racecourse in Surrey is only open to members.

Bellfield, 55 – who is in jail serving a whole life sentence for other murders – has marked a spot on the map where he claims he ditched Elizabeth’s body.

He was interviewed under caution at HMP Frankland in Brasside, Co Durham, after he wrote a signed confession claiming to have abducted 19-year-old Elizabeth in Ealing, West London, 24 years ago.

Officers are yet to start a search of the reserve, saying the area Bellfield identified is too vast. This week it emerged Elizabeth’s relatives have pressured police to begin digging.

The Chau family representative, Suresh Grover, has demanded an immediate update and written to Met police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.

Site at the centre of mystery (Hounslow Chronicle)

Mr Grover said: “It’s very frustrating and very hurtful for [the family].”

The Met said they are taking Bellfield’s disclosures “very seriously” and actively probing them.

At the time Elizabeth disappeared, Bellfield was 31 and working as a nightclub bouncer. He was living in West London, not far from Elizabeth’s last known sighting as she made her way home from Thames Valley University after handing in an assignment.

Bellfield is in prison for the murders of Marsha McDonnell, Amelie Delagrange and schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Milly was kidnapped and murdered in 2002 aged 13. She was walking home when she was abducted in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. Her body was found six months later.

Marsha, 19, was beaten to death close to her home in Hampton, South West London, in 2003, before Bellfield struck again in 2004, killing 22-year-old French student Amelie in nearby Twickenham.

Bellfield also attempted to murder Kate Sheedy when she was 18 by running her over in 2004 in another nearby town – Isleworth – leaving her with horrific injuries including a collapsed lung.

Former wheel clamper Bellfield, who would drive around in his van looking for girls and young women to attack, became known as the Bus Stop Killer.

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