Malcolm Fairley

Malcolm Fairley (born 1952) is a British criminal and sex offender, who in 1984 committed a series of burglaries and violent sexual crimes in the Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire areas of England, and more specifically, in an area of those counties known as the Triangle.

Fairley earned the nickname The Fox because he would build dens in the houses of his victims, before committing his crimes, which included rape, indecent assault and violent assault on the occupants.

After living in the Peterlee area of County Durham, in 1983 he moved to Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, where he took a series of labouring jobs at firms based in the Home Counties.

Fairley's modus operandi as The Fox was to either burgle his victims while they were not at home, spending time in the property where he would construct a den from blankets and furniture, watch television and take food from the fridge, or to break into the property while the occupants were asleep.

In these latter instances, the victims would typically wake to find Fairley, wearing gloves, and a mask to conceal his face, while brandishing a shotgun.

He would then subdue the occupants before committing either sexual assault on them, or rape.

Often he had observed the properties he planned to target in advance, and following an attack would make his getaway across open countryside.

It was his habit of constructing dens in the properties he targeted that would lead to the media giving him the nickname The Fox.

Fairley committed the first crime for which he would become notorious in April 1984, and went on to commit several more offences, many of them using increasing violence against his victims, over the summer of that year.

He was finally apprehended in September 1984 after briefly moving his activities to his native County Durham, and when police linked that crime to those in the Home Counties.

The operation to catch him involved 200 police officers, and is an early example of computers being used to help cross-reference information during a criminal investigation.

The operation cost Bedfordshire Police £200,000.

After committing a series of burglaries in March 1984, Fairley carried out the first sex-related crime for which he would become notorious as The Fox on 11 April, when he broke into the home of a 74-year-old woman in Leighton Buzzard.

She resisted his attempts to sexually assault her and he ran off.

He then began to break into a series of houses, where he would look at photographs, before burgling the home of a 35-year-old man in the Buckinghamshire village of Cheddington on the evening of 10 May.

There, he stole a 12 bore shotgun and cartridges, along with £300, but waited for the occupant to return home, at which point Fairley tied the victim up, and after watching pornographic videos, sexually assaulted the man.

He then buried the gun, but was unable to find it again.

After committing a further three burglaries, Fairley's next victims were a couple in Tring, Hertfordshire.

The couple were not home when Fairley broke into the property on 6 June.

He found another shotgun and cartridges, along with a hacksaw that he used to saw off the barrels of the gun; he would use the weapon during the remainder of his crimes.

He also removed photographs from albums and took clothes from drawers, stole an anorak and a packet of peanuts.

Three days after this incident, he broke into a house in Heath and Reach, where he constructed a den from blankets and furniture to conceal his presence from passers by and waited for the occupants to return, but fled when they did so.

On the same night he broke into a house at nearby Leighton Buzzard after travelling there on foot, and using a mask made from a trouser leg to conceal his identity.

The house belonged to a couple, the husband of whom tackled Fairley, an act that resulted in the shotgun being discharged, injuring the man's hand.

Fairley fled the scene again, leaving behind the anorak and peanuts, and did not commit another offence for a further month; he would later claim the incident had unsettled him.

On 6 July 1984, Fairley broke into a house at Linslade, where he tied up the occupants, a couple, and indecently assaulted then raped the wife, then committed another sexual attack on 10 July.

After this incident he shifted his attention to Edlesborough, where he committed more burglaries, before attacking an 18-year-old girl, breaking into the bungalow she shared with her boyfriend and brother, before tying up the males and raping the girl.

He then committed a series of burglaries in the Milton Keynes area, before driving to County Durham in mid-August.

While driving along the M18, he reversed off the hard shoulder into woodland, then crossed fields to the small village of Brampton-en-le-Morthen, where he broke into the home of a couple and committed another rape.

Afterwards he carefully cut out a portion of a bedsheet stained with his semen, then buried this along with the mask and gloves he had worn while committing the crime.

He also buried the gun.

As he drove away again, he accidentally reversed into bushes, scratching his car and leaving flecks of paintwork on the branches.

He then continued his journey to Peterlee, where he committed two similar crimes, before returning to Milton Keynes, where he committed a further eleven offences before he was apprehended in September.

His final attack was on a woman in Milton Keynes, whose house he broke into as she slept.

Having abandoned the gun, he used a knife in an attempt to subdue her, but the woman fought him off and he fled.

Fairley was convicted at St Albans Crown Court in February 1985, and given six life sentences.

Presiding judge, Mr Justice Caulfield described Fairley as "a decadent advertisement for evil pornographers".

Born in Silksworth, near Sunderland, Fairley was the youngest of nine children.

He came to the attention of the police as a teenager, for committing theft and burglary, and spent much of his twenties in and out of prison.

Married twice, his first wife left him after he became violent towards her, while his second marriage produced three children.