Sally Anne Bowman's killer Mark Dixie admits other sex attacks

A former chef already serving a life sentence for the brutal rape and murder of Sally Anne Bowman has admitted attacks on two other women.

Mark Dixie, 46, was jailed for 34 years in 2008 for repeatedly stabbing teenage model Miss Bowman before raping her as she lay dead or dying in Croydon, south London, in September 2005.

He denied killing the blonde 18-year-old at the time of his trial, but has now confessed to both her murder and previous assaults.

On Wednesday, the killer pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court, south London, to raping another woman 13 years before Miss Bowman's death, as well as attacking a further victim in 2002.

Both previous attacks also took place in Croydon.

Appearing via videolink from HMP Frankland in County Durham, the former pub worker, who lived in Australia from 1993 to 1999, appeared calm as he confessed to ambushing a woman in an isolated car park in 1987.

After raping her, Dixie tied the woman to her car and set fire to it, but she managed to escape.

Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told the court: "He actually raped her in her car and after he had attacked her and she had asked him to let her go, he said: 'I can't, you will go to police.'

"He used a silk tie from her blouse to tie her by her wrists, made her lie on the back seat of the car and tied her feet with the seat belt.

"He then set fire to the front seat of the car. He later told police he had set fire to a Tampax."

The sex attacker admitted charges of indecent assault and grievous bodily harm (GBH) after he hit the second woman over the head with a chef's steel - used to sharpen knives - before molesting her on a flight of stairs in 2002.

Dixie had described the crime to police after being linked to the 1987 attack by a fingerprint.

He told officers: "I will give you another one as well," Mr Aylett revealed to the court.

Dixie threatened to kill the woman after hitting her on the head several times and fled the scene following the attack, after being confronted by someone living close by.

Mr Aylett told the court how Dixie admitted Miss Bowman's murder to police in January 2015, nearly 10 years after her death.

"He wrote to police indicating he wanted to tell them the truth of what had happened to Sally Anne, because at the trial he said that he was not responsible for her murder," Mr Aylett said.

"He also admitted two other serious attacks on women that had taken place some time before."

Miss Bowman, who was also a singer, attended the BRIT School - subsequently made famous by stars such as Adele and Amy Winehouse - and had been compared to Kate Moss in her fledgling modelling career.

She was subject to a frenzied early hours attack by Dixie, including biting, just minutes after she had left her boyfriend following a row in a car.

The killer initially denied murder, claiming he had sex with Miss Bowman after finding her on the ground, not knowing she was dead or dying.

Dixie had a string of previous convictions before being jailed for Miss Bowman's murder.

He will be sentenced over the 1987 and 2002 attacks in September.