Sick child murderer Damien Bendall joins killers from in and around South Yorkshire who will never be released

32-year-old Bendall was told he will now spend the rest of his life in prison during a sentencing hearing at Derby Crown Court on December 21, during which the judge, Mr Justice Nigel Sweeney, sentenced Bendall to a whole-life order after he admitted to murdering his partner Terri Harris, her children John Paul Bennett and Lacey Bennett and Lacey’s friend, Connie Gent, after an horrific incident at their shared home on Chandos Cresent, in Killamarsh, in September, 2021. Bendall also admitted raping 11-year-old Lacey during the rampage.

Whole-life prison orders are the most severe punishment a judge can impose in the UK justice system, and are extremely rare. Judges can choose to ignore requests for such sentences to be imposed.

One such case is that of Sheffield child killers, Sarah Barrass and Brandon Machin, who were brought to justice in November 2019 for murdering their sons, 14-year-old Blake and Tristan, aged 13. Following the murders at the Barrass family home in Gregg House Road, Shiregreen on May 24, 2019, the Crown Prosecution Services advanced a recommendation that the incestuous couple were given whole-life sentences, however the judge, Mr Justice Goss, rejected the request and instead gave the pair determinate life sentences, to serve a minimum of 35 years each.

Whole-life orders

Among the notorious criminals currently serving whole-life orders is Levi Bellfield, who is thought to be the only criminal in UK legal history to be serving two whole-life orders – for Milly Dowling’s murder, the killings of Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange as well as the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy

Serial killer, Rose West who collaborated with her husband, Fred West, in the torture and murder of at least nine young women, is also serving a whole-life order.

The South Yorkshire killers serving whole-life tariffs

Bendall will now join a number of criminals who committed heinous crimes in and around South Yorkshire, or in the case of one – were finally arrested in the county – and were subsequently given a whole-life order.

Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, who was arrested in Sheffield, died in November 2021 at the age of 74 while serving a whole-life order.

His arrest in Broomhall in January 1981 ended a five-year reign of terror.

His killing spree triggered one of the largest police manhunt’s in history.

The serial killer murdered 13 women and attempted to kill another seven.

He was finally captured when two police officers on patrol in Sheffield spotted a car with false number plates.

Murderer Arthur Hutchinson, who killed three members of a Sheffield family, challenged a whole-life order he was sentenced to but lost his appeal and will also spend the rest of his life locked up.

He broke into a home in Dore in October 1983 and fatally stabbed husband and wife Basil and Avril Laitner and their son Richard.

Just hours earlier the family had hosted a wedding celebration.

The judge in his original trial ruled that he should serve a minimum of 18 years behind bars but then-home secretary Leon Brittan later imposed a whole-life order.

In 1989, killer Anthony Arkwright was sentenced to a whole-life tariff for a 56-hour killing spree in which he disembowelled three victims in Wath-upon-Dearne, Rotherham.

He was sacked from his job in Mexborough then went home and stabbed his grandfather and two of his neighbours.

In February 2018, Ian Birley was sentenced to a whole-life term for murdering 65-year-old John Gogarty, at his Wombwell home, Barnsley.

Birley struck 18 months after he had been released from prison for another murder.

The killer was out on licence after serving his sentence for a 1995 murder, when he attacked Mr Gogarty – stabbing him 69 times.

He and an accomplice attacked their victim during a robbery to pay a drugs debt.

The Killamarsh murders

During the course of the December 21 hearing, prosecuting barrister, Louis Malby KC, told Derby Crown Court: “On the night of Saturday, September 18, stretching into the early hours of Sunday, September 19, – now aged 32 - the defendant brutally and viciously murdered his then partner Terri Harris who was aged 35 at the time and was in the early stage of pregnancy.

"He also murdered her two children from another relationship – her 13-year-old son John Paul Bennett and her 11-year-old daughter Lacey, and he also murdered Connie Gent, also aged 11.”

He added: “These were brutal and vicious and cruel attacks on a defenceless woman and three young children.” Mr Mably added that Bendall struck his victims over their heads with a claw hammer as he moved around the property which he had shared with his partner Terri Harris.

Bendall also raped Lacey, according to Mr Mably, as she lay dying from the head injuries he had inflicted with the claw-hammer. Mr Mably said Bendall had originally moved in with Terri Harris at her former home in Sheffield but friends had raised concerns about Bendall’s alcohol and drug use and his unstable behaviour and he had boasted about a stabbing, and had shown Terri that he had a knuckle duster.

Mr Mably said that phone evidence indicated that the fatal attacks had happened shortly after 9.42pm as the children were preparing to go to bed and and at the same time that Bendall had been trying to contact his drug-dealer for cocaine. The court heard Terri Harris and Lacey Bennett were found by police deceased in the master bedroom of the property and the deceased body of Connie, who had been staying overnight, was found in another bedroom, and John Paul Bennett's deceased body was found in the bathroom.