Police are not reinvestigating three bludgeon attacks on women in Hastings linked to killer Levi Bellfield

Bellfield, who is serving life for the murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler, last week confessed to the hammer murders of mother and daughter Lin and Megan Russell in Kent in July 1996.

He is linked to more than 20 violent attacks and rapes over two decades, including three unsolved cases in the Hastings area while he was working for a wheel-clamping firm at a leisure centre in Chichester. One is the attack on medical technician Sarah Spurrell. She was viciously bludgeoned from behind in Laton Road, Hastings, in January 2004. The 23-year-old survived after her balaclava-clad attacker fled when a car drove past.

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The killer is also suspected of another hammer attack on a young woman just three hours later in the same road, and an attack in St Leonards where a woman was hit from behind with a blunt object outside her house.

Sarah, now 43, has previously called for her case to be reopened, saying she was “100% sure” it was Bellfield who attacked her. “He tried to kill me. Everybody attacked by him deserves justice,” she said.

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A spokesperson for Sussex Police confirmed this week there were no plans to reinvestigate the three cases. They told the Hastings Observer: “These offences were investigated at the time and there is no evidence to identify any suspects. There are no current lines of enquiry but anyone with any new information can contact Sussex Police on 101 at any time.”

At the time of the attacks, Bellfield had already killed Milly, 13, in Walton, Surrey, in 2002, and Marsha McDonnell, 19, in London in 2003.

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Bellfield, 53, who is imprisoned at HMP Frankland, Co Durham, last week confessed to killing Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan as they walked along a country lane in Chillenden. Another man, Michael Stone, has twice been found guilty of their murders. Stone’s solicitor Paul Bacon said he has received a four-page statement from Bellfield in which he claims to have carried out the attacks, including details of what he was wearing and how he made his escape.

Bellfield was suspected of over 100 assaults when jailed for two of his murders in 2008. He is one of around 50 British prisoners serving a whole life sentence, meaning he will never be released.