Justice for Sally Anne: he's guilty

The unanimous guilty verdict on Mark Dixie was greeted with cheers and weeping by the Bowman family. Dixie, 37, faced a life sentence this afternoon when Judge Gerald Gordon sets the minimum sentence he will have to serve.

After the verdict, police said they were convinced Dixie has killed before and launched an appeal to find more victims.

Dixie repeatedly stabbed 18-year-old Sally Anne in the driveway of her south London home then defiled her body. In the witness box he claimed someone else had killed her and he merely had sex with her already dead body. In the face of overwhelming evidence he forced her relatives to sit through the most appalling and disgusting evidence in court.

Today the seven woman, five man jury took just three and a half hours to find Dixie guilty of murder.

As her mother Linda wept, one of Sally Anne's sisters was so overcome with emotion she had to be helped from the court by a police officer.

Outside court today Sally Anne's father Paul said: "The last two years have been tortuously painful and difficult. Sally Anne you may have been taken from us but, rest assured, you will forever be missed and never forgotten." Referring to one of her favourite songs, the Celine Dion hit , he added: "In the words of the song: 'Your heart will go on.'"

Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, who led the murder hunt, said: "I believe Dixie has killed before, probably in Australia. I also believe there are other women who have been attacked across south London. I would appeal to people to look at Dixie's photograph and if they believe they have been a victim of him to contact the police."

Father-of-three Dixie started as a petty thief and flasher and graduated to more serious robberies and sex attacks to satisfy his lusts.

He has five previous convictions for sex offences in Britain and one in Australia, which led to him being deported. This does not include the attack on a Thai woman in Perth whom he raped and left for dead with identical wounds to Sally Anne.

In September 2005, angered at rejection by his partner Stacey Nevit and fuelled by a large amount of alcohol and cocaine, he went looking for sex on the streets, armed with a knife.

At around 3.40am he stole a bag and mobile phone from a woman in Sanderstead Road, Croydon before being scared off by an approaching taxi.

Just 34 minutes later he set upon Sally Anne. She had just been dropped off outside her home in Blenheim Crescent by her boyfriend Lewis Sproston.

Dixie was lying in wait and stabbed her seven times, snatching her underwear, mobile phone, Gucci purse and Prada handbag as trophies. Within days he fled to Amsterdam and, after his return to Britain, was only traced when his DNA was routinely taken by police following his arrest in Crawley for a 2006 World Cup football punch up.

His sample matched traces found at the murder scene and he was arrested within hours.

The successful use of DNA in his conviction - and that of Suffolk strangler Steve Wright yesterday - has highlighted the increasing value of forensic evidence in securing convictions. The success today prompted MPs to call for the existing DNA database - which currently contains more than four million records - to be extended further or made compulsory.

Martin Salter, a Labour member of the House of Commons Home Affairs select committee, said the creation of a DNA database containing samples from all residents was a "logical extension" of the Government's existing drive to introduce biometric passports.

Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley, also backed a compulsory national database, saying: "I'm not averse to it being extended to everybody if it helps the police to clear up crime."