Peter Fell 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 put into care.

Peter and Paul -- who now 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 was not the culprit.

Peter and 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 thrown out of the army after being dubbed a nuisance by disciplinary officers.

The murders of the women took place on Aldershot Common in 1982 and Peter was arrested shortly afterwards.

Peter made a drunken call to the police after the murders were publicised to say the killer's name was Pete and lived on York Road, Aldershot -- his own address.

He was interviewed by detectives and gave an account of his movements on the day of the murders, but was released without charge.

He later moved to Bournemouth where he got married to Ann, who suffered from epilepsy.

They had a baby, Sara, in 1983. Peter had a variety of jobs in Bournemouth including working as a hotel porter and a school groundsman.

He separated from his wife who had gone back to live with her mother and he started drinking heavily.

In 1983, with the murders still unsolved, police received more calls from Peter identifying himself as the killer.

He confessed after 72 hours of questioning without a solicitor.

A doctor who assessed him in the week before his trial diagnosed him as a pathological confessor, by which he meant he would confess to anything.

There was no forensic evidence.

No murder weapon was ever found.

The trial at Winchester Crown Court in 1984 lasted 19 days and the jury of six men and six women deliberated for 25 hours and 30 minutes before reaching majority verdicts of guilty for each murder.

Peter was released from HMP The Verne in Dorset on bail on December 1 by Lord Justice Potter at the Court of Appeal after prosecution lawyers agreed his conviction was unsafe.

Yesterday three judges quashed the conviction and Peter was officially a free man.