He even boasted about laughing when he was found guilty of her murder in 2016, later claiming he found it “ironic”. In 2011, Halliwell confessed to murdering Becky back in 2003, as well as killing 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan eight years later. However, his confession was ruled inadmissible, because Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher had breached police guidelines before he obtained it.

After Sian went missing, Halliwell was the prime suspect, because his car had been spotted at the scene of her disappearance.

When he was first arrested, Halliwell replied “no comment” to all questions at the scene.

He should then have been taken to a police station and allowed access to a lawyer.

Instead, DS Fulcher persisted in the hope of finding Sian alive.

He took Halliwell back to the location of where it was believed he had kidnapped the young women.

He asked: “Tell me where Sian is?” and Halliwell, incredibly, took him to where he had moved Sian’s body.

The killer told the detective how he had murdered Sian, and then took him to the burial site of his other victim, Becky.

However, these confessions were thrown out of court, because Halliwell had not been cautioned and denied a solicitor before he made them.

This breached the guidelines of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

At first, Halliwell pleaded not guilty to Sian’s murder, but after DNA evidence was found on her body, as well as blood in his car, he changed his plea to guilty.

He was sentenced to life in prison for Sian’s murder in 2012, with a minimum of 25 years.

However, the charge against him for Becky’s murdered was dropped because his confession was all they had.

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However, over the next four years, Wiltshire Police painstakingly gathered other evidence that linked him to the murder.

They mapped Becky’s final movements with what Halliwell had been doing at the time.

Police also found soil on tools in his shed that matched the soil in the field where Becky was buried.

In 2016, he was finally convicted of Becky’s murder and given a whole life order, meaning he will never be released from prison.

Despite his conviction, Halliwell maintains his innocence of this horrific crime.

In letters uncovered by the Sunday Mirror in 2016, Halliwell wrote: “Short of the deceased walking into court and sitting on the judge’s lap, I was going to be found guilty whatever happened.

“I went into court to tell it like it is and it was important to me that whatever I had to say came from me, not a lawyer.

“And yes, I laughed at a guilty verdict.

“I found it ironic that I was found guilty of killing someone I never met.”

Halliwell had claimed during his trial at Bristol Crown Court that he had been given £700 by two drug dealers to drive them to the spot where Becky’s remains were found years later in Oxo Bottom field in Eastleach, Gloucestershire.

However, his “fairytale” was dismissed.

In the letters, he did not rule out appealing the conviction, but said he “doesn’t have the energy” at the moment.

The prisoner wrote: “The last six months have been a headache, having trawled through 11,000 pages of documents with little sleep.

“I’ve no regrets, I told the truth and it didn’t go down well.

“It it is what it is. I don’t know if I’ll appeal. 

“I certainly have plenty of grounds for it, but at the moment I’m spent and haven’t got the will for another fight. Not yet.”

In contrast, he expressed remorse for murdering personal assistant Sian in 2011.

He wrote: “I do deserve the previous life sentence for Sian’s death. I had no right to lose my temper the way I did.”

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