List of major crimes in the United Kingdom
Date Name No . of Deaths Location Details
1827-1828 The Burke and Hare murders 17 Edinburgh , Scotland William Burke and William Hare sold the corpses of 17 victims to provide material for dissection
1865-1873 The Mary Ann Cotton murders 21 England Believed to have murdered up to 21 people , mainly by arsenic poisoning . Many of her victims had married her
1896 The Amelia Dyer case 247 ( attributed ) Reading , Berkshire London England Amelia Elizabeth Dyer ( née Hobley ) , was the most prolific baby farm murderer of Victorian England . She was tried and hanged for one murder , but there is little doubt she was responsible for many more similar deaths - possibly 400 or more - over a period of about 20 years
1888 Jack the Ripper 5+ Whitechapel , London , England At least five prostitutes were murdered and mutilated by an unidentified serial killer , dubbed Jack the Ripper by the press . The killer was never apprehended
1943-1953 The John Reginald Halliday Christie Killings 6-8 Notting Hill , London . England John Reginald Halliday Christie murdered at least six women - including his wife Ethel - by strangling them in his flat at 10 Rillington Place , Notting Hill , London . Christie moved out of Rillington Place in March 1953 , and shortly afterwards the bodies of three of his victims were discovered hidden in an alcove in his kitchen . Christie was arrested and convicted of his wife 's murder , for which he was hanged in 1953
1944-1949 The John George Haigh case ( The Acid Bath Murderer ) 6-8 London , England John George Haigh murdered six people and disposed of their bodies in drums of sulphuric acid . He then forged documents turning the murder victims ' possessions over to himself . Haigh was eventually caught after the disappearance and eventual murder of socialite Henrietta Durand-Deacon , apparently believing the police would be unable to prosecute him without her body
1956-1958 Peter Manuel ( The Beast of Birkenshaw ) 7-9 Glasgow & Lanarkshire , Scotland Peter Manuel was an American-born Scottish serial killer who was convicted of murdering seven people across Lanarkshire and southern Scotland between 1956 and his arrest in January 1958 , and is believed to have murdered two more . Prior to his arrest , the media nicknamed the unidentified killer the Beast of Birkenshaw . Manuel was hanged at Glasgow 's Barlinnie Prison ; he was one of the last prisoners to die on the Barlinnie gallows
1963-1965 The Ian Brady and Myra Hindley case ( The Moors Murders ) 5 Oldham , Lancashire , England Five children were killed in the area of Greater Manchester over a two-year period by serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley . After being turned in by Hindley 's brother-in-law David Smith , Brady was found guilty of three murders and Hindley of two at their trial in May 1966 , for which they received life sentences . They admitted the two other murders 20 years later . Hindley remained in prison until her death in November 2002 , while Brady was held at a secure mental hospital until his death in 2017
1968-1969 The Bible John Murders 3 ( ? ) Glasgow , Scotland Three women were found strangled between 1968 and 1969 by an unidentified serial killer known only as Bible John . Although police investigated the murders for over 20 years , the murderer was never identified although serial killer Peter Tobin is a suspect
1973-1978 The Robert Maudsley case ( Hannibal the Cannibal ) 4 Robert John Maudsley was a serial killer responsible for the murders of four people . Jailed for life for a single murder in 1975 , he committed three of the murders in prison . He was reported to have eaten part of the brain of one of three men he killed in jail , which earned him the nickname Hannibal the Cannibal among the British press
1974-1975 The Patrick Mackay case 5-12 ? Dartford , Kent , England Mackay was a serial killer who confessed to murdering 11 people in London and Kent
1975-1981 The Peter Sutcliffe Murders ( The Yorkshire Ripper ) 13-20+ Yorkshire , England Peter Sutcliffe , known to the press as the Yorkshire Ripper , murdered 13 women and attacked seven others in the north of England between 1975 and 1980 . Captured in January 1981 and sentenced to life imprisonment later that year , he was imprisoned at Parkhurst Prison until his transfer to Broadmoor Hospital later in the 1980s after he was violently assaulted by another inmate
1978 The Peter Dinsdale killings 26 Hull , England Dinsdale was one of Britain 's most prolific killers . He confessed to a total of 11 acts of arson , and was convicted of 26 counts of manslaughter . 11 of these were overturned on appeal . Lee was imprisoned for life in 1981
1978-1983 The Dennis Nilsen murders 15+ London Dennis Nilsen murdered several men over a period of five years , including foreign students as well as local homeless men and male prostitutes , who were lured to his apartment and strangled before being dismembered . A number of Nilsen 's victims have never been identified
1982-1986 The Robert Black murders 4+ Scotland & North of England Robert Black is a Scottish serial killer and child molester . He kidnapped , raped and murdered three girls during the 1980s , kidnapped a fourth girl who survived , attempted to kidnap a fifth , and is the suspect in a number of unsolved child murders dating back to 1969 and the 1970s throughout Europe . On 16 December 2009 Black was charged with the murder of Jennifer Cardy , a 9-year-old girl whose body was found at McKee 's Dam near Hillsborough , County Down , in August 1981 . He was initially jailed for life for abducting a seven-year-old girl in July 1990 , and police soon found evidence to charge him with the murders of three girls during the 1980s . He was convicted of all three murders in May 1994 and sentenced to a further 10 concurrent terms of life imprisonment , with a recommended minimum term of 35 years
1991-2006 The Peter Tobin case 3 ( ? ) Margate , Kent Prior to his first murder conviction , Tobin served ten years in prison for a double rape committed in 1993 , following which he was released in 2004 . In 2007 he was sentenced to life with a minimum of 21 years for the rape and murder of Angelika Kluk in Glasgow the previous year . Skeletal remains of two further young women who went missing in 1991 were subsequently found at his former home in Margate . Tobin was convicted of the murder of Vicky Hamilton in December 2008 , when his minimum sentence was increased to 30 years , and of the murder of Dinah McNicol in December 2009 . He is now being investigated for other unsolved cases of murder dating back to the 1960s
1994 Fred and Rosemary West case ( The Wests ' House of Horrors ) 12 ( + ? ) Gloucester , England Between April 1973 and September 1979 , Fred and Rosemary West lured young women into their home where they were sexually assaulted and murdered . In February 1994 they were arrested after corpses were found buried in the garden and under their house in Gloucester . It is speculated that the pair committed further murders between 1980 and 1992 , and may have killed a total of around 30 people , but their only known victim after 1980 was their 16-year-old daughter , Heather , who was murdered in 1987 by Fred West , who hanged himself whilst awaiting trial at Winson Green Prison on New Year 's Day 1995 . On 22 November 1995 , Rosemary West was sentenced to life imprisonment and the trial judge recommended that she should never be released . Fred West had committed two murders during the 1960s before he met Rosemary , including that of his wife . Fred 's eight-year-old daughter Charmaine is also believed to have died at the hands of Rosemary West while Fred West was serving a prison sentence for theft in late 1970 or early 1971
2002-04 The Levi Bellfield case 3+ Surrey , Hampton , Isleworth , Twickenham , England Murder of Milly Dowler , a 13-year-old girl , murder of Marsha McDonnell , 19-year-old woman , attempted murder of Kate Sheedy , aged 18 and finally murder of Amélie Delagrange , a 22-year-old French student in foreign languages applied , by serial killer Levi Bellfield . For these 3 criminal cases , Levi is sentenced to life imprisonment . Levi is also suspicious in other cases of missing women in the 1990s , as well as the murder of his childhood girlfriend , 14-year-old Patsy Morris in 1980
2006 The Steve Wright killings ( The Ipswich Ripper ) 5 Ipswich , Suffolk , England Five women from Ipswich who were working as prostitutes were found murdered around the town in December 2006 . Steve Wright , a local forklift truck driver , was charged with five murders and found guilty on all charges in February 2008 . He was jailed for life and the trial judge recommended he should never be released . A subsequent appeal against his convictions by Wright was rejected by the High Court
2013 The Peterborough ditch murders 3 Peterborough . Cambridgeshire , England Three men were stabbed to death in March 2013 , with their bodies found dumped in ditches outside Peterborough . The perpetrator of the murders was Joanna Dennehy , a local woman who was later sentenced to life imprisonment , with a recommendation that she never be released
Serial killings
See also List of serial killers by country .
This is a list of major crimes in the United Kingdom that received significant media coverage or led to changes in legislation. Legally each deliberate and unlawful killing of a human being is murder; there are no crimes of assassination or serial killing as such, for example.