Hospital electrician David Fuller, who sexually abused the bodies of at least 102 women and girls, has been sentenced to life in jail.

       Fuller, 67, killed and then sexually assaulted two young women, Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce, in two separate attacks in 1987.

       Fuller was given two whole life sentences for the two murders and twelve years for his abuse of women and girls in hospital mortuaries. In her sentencing remarks, judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb described Fuller as a “vulture, picking your victims from among the dead”.

       She continued: “You will spend every day of the rest of your life in prison.”

       Fuller was caught 33 years after the 1987 murders following a DNA breakthrough. Police investigations at his home revealed Fuller had recorded himself abusing bodies in hospital mortuaries for more than a decade.

       It was revealed in court on Wednesday that Fuller had abused the corpses of at least 102 women - including a nine-year-old girl, two 16-year-olds and a woman aged 100.

       Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC told Maidstone Crown Court: “David Fuller systematically and repeatedly sexually abused the bodies of dead women and girls.”

       He said that though the police know the names of 82 of the victims, a further 20 may never be identified.

       The mother of Fuller’s youngest victim said the abuse of her nine-year-old daughter’s body would “haunt me forever and the rest of my life”.

       She added: “My pain - the guilt that I feel because I left her in that hospital, the one that’s meant to be a safe place.

       “I have nothing, no way of closure, how will I make it up to her? How will I stand by her side now, and how will I nurse that little body that has been ruined and disrespected by that vile man?”

       In her sentencing remarks, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb QC said the killings of the two women in 1987 were “premeditated”, “carefully planned and executed”.

       She described David Fuller as a “prowler” and murder victim Wendy Knell as “successful, happy and independent”.

       Fellow murder victim Caroline Pierce, the judge said, was “a lively young woman” when she was killed.

       She said that the murders were sexually motivated, adding: “Once you had killed these women you spent time with them to satisfy your sexual deviancy.”

       Speaking to Fuller, the judge said: “Your violations go against everything right and humane, they are incomprehensible.”

       She described the offences in the mortuaries as involving “an astonishing breach of trust and invasion of privacy, that was repeated so much that it became habitual.”

       Fuller plead guilty to murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, days into this trial after previously admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

       He also plead guilty to 51 other offences, including 44 charges relating to 78 victims in mortuaries. The charges also including possession of an extreme pornographic image and taking indecent images of children.