PETER Fell had an unsettled start to his life in East Lancashire.

He was born in 1961, the eldest of Alan and Maureen's three children.

The stormy marriage ended in divorce in 1965 and Peter and his brother Paul were just toddlers when they were put into care.

Peter and Paul, who has the surname Davies, stayed with foster parents before going to live in a foster home in Weymouth.

They returned to Lancashire in 1975 when Peter was 10 and lived at Blake Gardens Children's Home at Great Harwood and later with foster parents.

Staff at Blake Gardens remembered him as a lonely child who was desperate to draw attention to himself.

They recalled one incident when he took the blame for breaking a cup - even though staff knew he wasn't the culprit.

Peter his brother both attended Norden High School, Rishton, before Peter left at 16 to join the Royal Transport Corps as a driver.

During his time as a soldier he used to boast about his macho exploits and while on tour in Germany he falsely claimed to have been attacked by civilians.

He was later discharged from the Army "in the interests of the service".

Shortly after the killings he moved to Bournemouth and got married to Ann, who suffered from epilepsy. They had a baby, Sara, in 1983. He had a variety of jobs in Bournemouth including working as a hotel porter and a school groundsman.

Just before he was arrested again, a year after the murders, he had started work as a door-to-door salesman for a photographic company in Bournemouth.

His wife had gone back to live with her mother and he had begun drinking heavily.

It was then that he made more calls to the police naming himself as the killer.

Before being charged with the brutal killings Fell only had two minor previous convictions, one for abusive behaviour, and the other from stealing from an electricity meter - both committed during a period of heavy drinking.

At his trial he was described as an emotionally insecure young man who tried to impress others and lied frequently.

He told people that he had served in the Falklands and Northern Ireland.

He also confessed to buying a sports trophy from a shop, and having his picture taken with it so he could boast to people that he was a former Army boxing champ.