Milly Dowler murder: Who is Levi Bellfield?

Levi Bellfield, who today admitted to the murder of teenager Milly Dowler, four years after her murder, is one of the country's most dangerous serial killers.

At the time of his conviction for Milly's killing in 2011 he was already in jail for the murders of Amelie Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy.

At Bellfield's trial former friend Ricky Brouillard described him as an "animal" and told how Bellfield had sex in front of him with a teenager.

Trial prosecutor Brian Altman said that Bellfield "hated women", in particular blonde women.

One former girlfriend said that she had found a magazine in which the faces of blonde women had been scratched out with a knife.

He appeared to take pleasure from stalking teenagers, spotting them on buses or near bus stops.

Before his arrest for the Delagrange murder, while under police surveillance, Bellfield approached and made "highly sexually provocative" comments to two schoolgirls at a bus stop.

The incident was withheld from the jury at his trial as the judge deemed it too prejudicial.

By the time of his conviction for Milly's murder police said they believed he was responsible for around 20 unsolved attacks, including the killing of Patsy Morris, 14, a school friend of Bellfield's found strangled on Hounslow Heath in 1980, although nothing has shown him to be responsible for this.

In addition, Bellfield was suspected of date-rape crimes involving young women who were plied with drugs and sexually abused.

Bellfield was born in Isleworth, west London and was brought up in west London by his elderly and ailing mother.

Over six foot tall, the former bouncer was said to have an obsession with sex.

One former partner who Bellfield was violent towards claimed he had shown an unhealthy interest in one of the 13-year-old relatives.

Gillian Mills, whose 17-year-old daughter started a relationship with Bellfield when he was working as a club bouncer, said she "didn't like the look of him".

"I would describe Levi as a big, fat lump with a high voice," she said.

Bellfield had multiple partners, often at the same time and is said to fathered at least 11 children by five women.

In prison Bellfield, who has a devil tattoo on his shoulder, converted to Islam and now calls himself Yusuf Rahim.