A Irish-born serial sex offender is serving a life sentence for murdering a London schoolgirl and dumping her body in a disused cement works, it can be reported for the first time today.
Robert Lesarian Howard (61) was jailed for life for the murder of 14-year-old Hannah Williams in October 2003. The teenager disappeared near her home in Deptford, south east London, two years earlier.
A detective who interviewed Robert Lesarian Howard
But details of Howard's conviction in Maidstone, Kent can only be made public today after separate sex charges he faced in Northern Ireland were dropped.
Howard, who was born in Wolfhill, Co Laois in 1944, had a string of previous sex convictions stretching back to 1964. He strangled Hannah with a 12-metre rope.
The killer, whose address was given as Lions Close, Mottingham, south east London, then dumped her body at the former cement works in Northfleet, Kent.
Hannah's badly-decomposed body was not found until a year after her murder.
Earlier this year, a jury at Belfast Crown Court cleared Howard of murdering Co Tyrone teenager Arlene Arkinson. Today reporting restrictions were lifted.
In August 1994, Howard drove Arlene to the seaside town of Bundoran, Co Donegal, for drinks with his girlfriend's daughter and her boyfriend. On August 14th he dropped the couple off at the boyfriend's house, outside Castlederg, at around 2.30am.
He drove off with Arlene and was the last person to see her alive. The 15-year-old's body has never been found.
Howard has been preying on young girls for five decades - drifting throughout the Ireland and Britain from community to community offering his services as a tradesman.
His first sex attack was in London in 1964 when he attacked a six-year-old girl during a burglary.
He was also convicted of attempted rape and aggravated burglary in Durham. In 1974 he received a 10-year sentence for rape in Cork. He was released after seven years in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.
But as there was no sex offenders register to catalogue crimes from the 1970s, he was free to drift into communities and ingratiate himself with locals unaware of his past.
Detectives in the Republic have traced him to at least three addresses in Dublin and also in counties Wexford and Monaghan. North of the border, he is believed to have lived in Newry, Co Down, Castlederg and Cookstown, Co Tyrone, where he was under 24-hour surveillance.
While living in Castlederg in 1994, Howard was accused of raping a 16-year-old girl. He insisted the sex was consensual and was given bail.
Around August 1994, while he was on bail, Arlene Arkinson disappeared and he was questioned by the RUC. Much to the concern of detectives, Howard was convicted of a lesser charge in the case against him over the 16-year-old.
He received a three-year sentence, suspended for five years, for having unlawful sex with a girl under the age of 17. One detective who interviewed him said: "He is very shrewd and has native cunning. He is the proverbial shithouse rat - an evil bastard. As evil as the Yorkshire Ripper. We know he has killed and there is no doubt he would kill again."
In May 2002 detectives decided they would charge Howard with murdering Arlene Arkinson. Just over three years later, last June, a jury decided he was not guilty. But instead of walking free he was sent back to England to continue serving the life sentence imposed for murdering Hannah Williams.