Patient charged with two murders

The victims were found eight days apart in their Hastings homes

A Broadmoor patient has been charged with murdering two women and attempting to murder a student 11 years ago.

Sussex Police said Graham Fisher, 36, is accused of the murders of Clare Letchford, 40, and Beryl O'Connor, 75, in Hastings, East Sussex, in 1998.

He has also been charged with the attempted murder and attempted rape of a Czech student, now aged 30, on a Hastings to Charing Cross train.

He will appear before Hastings magistrates by video link on 15 July.

The bodies of Clare Letchford and Beryl O'Connor, who was known as Dornie, were found eight days apart in their Hastings homes in January 1998.

Ms Letchford was found in her rented basement home in Cornwallis Gardens on 18 January.

Mrs O'Connor was discovered in her flat 100 yards (91m) away in Holmesdale Gardens on 26 January.

They had been strangled before being set on fire.

The Czech student was attacked on 25 January in a toilet on a Hastings to London Charing Cross train.

She had arrived three months earlier in East Sussex as an English language student.

Police said the accused, Graham Fisher, was formerly from Bromley, south-east London, and was now at Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire.

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Det Ch Insp Trevor Bowles gives details of the charges