Convicted child killer who tried to murder again is jailed
Murderer who killed girl, 3, in 1979 then tried to decapitate a neighbour in a row over a rake when he was let out of prison early is jailed for life
Stephen Chafer – a convicted child killer – has been sent back to prison after he tried to kill a woman while out on licence
A convicted child killer who tried to kill a woman while on release from prison has been sent back to jail again.
Stephen Chafer, 57, attempted to murder dementia sufferer Fay Mills last year, just a few months after being released from prison for an arson offence.
Incredibly, the grandmother of two survived the horrific assault, and there was outrage when it later emerged he had previously sexually assaulted and stabbed to death three-year-old Lorraine Holt in 1979.
Today, he was handed a life sentence and ordered to serve a minimum 17 years for the attempted murder – raising the prospect he could be freed again.
He served 23 years in jail for that crime and was released in 2002. In 2013 he was then jailed again for committing arson. He had set fire to his flat in Peterborough after removing the smoke alarms.
He was released in August last year after a Parole Board hearing – a decision that has now been criticised by his victims’ families.
Chafer was 17 when he was jailed for life for sexually assaulting three-year-old Lorraine Holt (left). While on licence from prison last year, he launched a frenzied knife attack on 60-year-old Fay Mills (right) at her Peterborough home
Lorraine Holt was snatched by Chafer when he was 17. The teenager gave the little girl some sweets before taking her to the grounds of a vicarage where he sexually assaulted her before stabbing her 39 times.
He had been out on licence for just ten months following his sentence for the arson when he attacked Mrs Mills. The pair had known each other for about 15 years.
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On June 23 this year he went to her home in Peterborough. Charles Falk, prosecuting, told a trial at Cambridge Crown Court that a dispute over the rake ’caused a flick of the switch in his head’.
He battered her over the head with the tool before getting a knife.
Ms Mills neighbour Mark Patchett, who was also attacked by Chafer when he went to her aid, said he should never have been freed
Prosecutor Mr Falk said: ‘He inflicted multiple stab wounds all over her body and almost decapitated her’. He left Mrs Mills with a fractured skull and brain damage after stabbing her in the eye.
Her injuries were so severe police officers thought she was dead when they arrived.
Mrs Mills’ daughter, Sheila, a 32-year-old bingo hall worker, said: ‘He should never have been released. How can you do something like that, then come out and live a normal life and be able to do it again?’
Victims’ rights campaigner Harry Fletcher said: ‘There needs to be a departmental inquiry into the circumstances that allowed the Parole Board to release him in 2017.’
A Parole Board spokesman said: ‘Tragically, there are rare occasions when offenders go on to commit serious further offences after being released by the Parole Board.
‘We do take each case extremely seriously and work with others in the criminal justice system to ensure that lessons are learned to prevent further tragedies.’
Chafer was convicted of attempted murder last year.
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