'Sadistic' killer jailed for women's deaths

The two vulnerable women were discovered strangled and burned in their flats less than 100 yards apart in Hastings, East Sussex, in January 1998.

At Lewes Crown Court, Fisher was given the indeterminate prison sentence after he admitted attempting to murder and trying to rape a student on a train in the same month as the killings.

Fisher also pleaded guilty to two counts of rape of another vulnerable woman in her early 40s at her home in Bromley, south-east London, in 1991.

He confessed to the offences while being held at the high- security psychiatric hospital two years ago after saying he found it hard to live with his crimes, the court heard.

Prosecutors said Fisher targeted lonely women, some of whom he knew, to satisfy what one psychiatrist described as a "sexually sadistic" aspect to his personality.