THE crime for which Peter Fell was convicted shocked the nation.

On a cold spring afternoon in May 1982, two housewives Anne Lee, 44, and Margaret Johnson, 66, were savagely murdered as they walked their dogs on Hungry Hill, Aldershot.

They were both stabbed several times but the killings appeared motiveless.

Peter Fell now says his only crime was being foolish - he rang the police after the murders were publicised to say the murderer was called Pete and lived in York Road, Aldershot - his own address.

He was interviewed and gave an account of his movements on that day, but was released without charge.

A year later with the murders still unsolved, the police received more calls from Fell - identifying himself as the killer.

He was arrested and taken to Farnborough Police Station.

He confessed after 72 hours questioning without a solicitor and his supporters claim the facts in it did not match with the actual events. The confession was later retracted.

His trial had lasted 19 days, and the jury of six men and six women deliberated for 25 hours and 30 minutes before reaching 10-2 majority verdicts of guilty for each murder.

The court heard that Fell, who pleaded not guilty, had made 13 anonymous phone calls to police naming himself as the killer.

The defence had not called him to give evidence, but during the trial, the jury was told that he had made a partial confession to police admitting he had killed the women, although he denied remembering anything about stabbing them. Fell, who has also claimed that he tried to incriminate himself for the Yorkshire Ripper murders, and his supporters say these are many aspects of his case that make the conviction unsafe:

There was no forensic evidence

No murder weapon was found

He was not picked out at an identity parade

The police released him on bail for three months on the same day he made the confession

Detectives came close to charging a second man with the murders

His alibi that he was in a bank at the the time of the killings stands up

A woman who was attacked in a similar fashion a year before the two murders says the photofit of the double killer was the same man who attacked her. Fell was serving in Germany at the time she was attacked.

A second woman has come forward since the publicity given to Fell's case to say she saw a "crazy-looking" man near the murder scene just an hour before the killings who was definitely not Fell.

Fell has been described by psychiatrists as being a classic case attention seeker, who would lie and exaggerate to be noticed.