The sex attacker who became a killer when he lost his job

Shy loner Jason Dockrill became a depraved sex killer and battered a Finnish student to death weeks after losing his job and his girlfriend.

Dockrill, 34, killed  23-year-old Suvi Aronen as her distraught mother heard her pleas for help from 1,000 miles away over a mobile phone.

He left her body horrifically mutilated after a chance encounter with the student in an underpass during a series of attacks on women attacks on women.

When he was told he was being arrested for murder Dockrill said, ‘Yeah, I’m loving it.’

Dockrill, who was living at home with the parents who idolised him, was arrested three days after the killing on his way to his ex-girlfriend’s house after sending her aggressive phone messages.

After his conviction for murder he was later linked to the rape of a woman outside a gay club.

But before March 2003 Dockrill was unknown to police and had no previous convictions.

Psychiatrists now believe he suffered a ‘crisis’ after being confronted by his parents, lover, and doctors over his pathological lying.

Dockrill was found guilty of murder by the unanimous verdict of the jury at the Old Bailey.

The Recorder of London, Michael Hyam, told Dockrill he would serve a minimum of 25 years before parole is even considered.

‘You were involved in sexual and sadistic conduct of so brutal a nature that the doctors thought it exceptional in their experience.’

He added: ‘The attack you made on Suvi Aronen was particularly savage and it included within it a very grave aggravating feature.

‘You attack that day was predatory.

You conduct was wicked and without remorse and I can find no mitigating factor which even begins to excuse your conduct.

‘I regard you as a danger to women and consider you are likely to remain so for a long time if not indefinitely.’

DCI Bryan Sweeting said it was one of the worst cases he had seen in his 21 year career and added: ‘He is a very violent man who represents a serious danger to the public.’

The jury heard how balding Dockrill had a happy childhood at the family home in Stratford.

He later admitted to being a ‘mummy’s boy’ but claimed he was picked on at Trinity Secondary school in Canning Town and enjoyed bullying smaller children in turn.

Dockrill joined the army cadets at school in Canning Town and told one psychiatrist he collected deactivated weapons, German memorabilia and skulls.

He also claimed to have enjoyed torturing and stringing up animals – even boasting about tying a firework to a rabbit on a skateboard.

Detectives are unable to back up the claims but found hundreds of drawings of skulls and daggers on sketchpads in his room at home.

The only sign of any mental illness was his compulsive lying about his past to his parents, girlfriends and colleagues at the building firm where he worked as a diesel fitter.

He repeatedly told one fellow worker about his sexual exploits with women they had seen in the fish and chip shop or in the street.

Dockrill was first referred to a psychiatrist in November 1993 but failed to turned up to the appointment.

The major crisis came in Christmas and New Year 2003 when he was dumped by girlfriend Susan Jewers, from Brentwood, Essex.

‘As time went on I started to realise that Jason was having me over,’ Ms Jewers said in a statement.

‘He was always lying to me which I didn’t realise until we spent time together at Christmas.

‘Everything started to fall into place.’

     Suvi Aronen

Dockrill became aggressive, claiming he had a gun, but then started crying and threatening to kill himself.

He later told colleagues at work in Barking he had suffered a nervous breakdown.

His GP referred him to expert counsellor Kate Thompson in 2003 over his lying and they met four times.

She said he told her he spent all his money on women, taking taxis everywhere and wining and dining them in top restaurants.

Ms Thompson said he was a ‘Walter Mitty character’ and ‘like a little boy lost.’

The final dent to his self-esteem came on March 6, 2003, when he resigned after being challenged over his constant days off sick and bizarre tales of accidents at work.

‘The importance of this is his source of income had disappeared,’ said prosecutor Richard Horwell QC.

‘He needed to replace it by another source of income such as stealing from women.

‘There was also a sexual or at least an anti-female element to these incidents.’

Dockrill has since been questioned over a robbery of a young girl on March 16 but was first noticed by police two days later.

He was seen loitering around a house in Northumberland Avenue in Wanstead, east London, and his details were entered into the intelligence database.

The next day he robbed a 23-year-old pregnant woman walking in Hollow Pond near Epping Forest after a pre-natal appointment.

On March 20 he was seen by an off-duty special constable acting suspiciously an hour before he attacked 44-year-old Fahima Al-Barzanji in Markway Close, Wanstead.

Dockrill grabbed her from behind, punched her on the head and tried to pull her towards a nearby park but fled when she screamed for help.

Thirty minutes later he robbed 80-year-old Karin Karina as she fed the birds in Wanstead Park.

Dockrill was again disturbed as he tried to drag her along the ground and was attacked with a dog chain by a man walking his pet.

He ran away only to attack 56-year-old Glynis Moore minutes later in Canterbury Avenue and steal her handbag.

The same bag was found in the underpass at Redbridge roundabout where he is believed to have first approached Suvi Aronen.

Miss Aronen, originally from Tampere in Finland, was expected to win a first-class degree in cultural and media studies at the University of East London that year.

She was due to marry a 25-year-old Englishman Ben Lancaster who she had met in Finland where he worked as a teacher.

They were planning to return to her homeland to live in Helsinki after she graduated.

By a cruel twist of fate she was only in the area because she took a different bus home, the 366, to enjoy the sunny weather in the park.

She was last seen carrying her rucksack towards the underpass followed by bald-headed Dockrill.

Mother Sirpa Aronen called her at 6pm that evening and heard her daughter being brutally attacked in Wanstead Park.

She said in a police statement: ‘I heard Suvi crying in Finnish and English, ”Go away” and ”Don’t hurt me”

‘I also heard her crying.

I heard her mutter and mumbling and understood that someone else was present.

‘When I called Suvi and heard Suvi crying I knew that something evil was taking place.’

Her husband Jorma also listened to the call and they called Suvi’s landlady and boyfriend before contacting the police.

Suvi’s body was discovered the next day hidden under plants, a fence and a concrete post.

‘At his hands she had met an appalling death,’ said Mr Horwell.

‘The body was unclothed from the waist down.

Death had been caused by repeated blows to the head.

‘A brick was found nearby with Suvi Aronen’s blood on it and some hairs.

‘The victim also had severe internal injuries from a sex attack and also bite marks to her genitals, her left ear and her left breast.

Her left foot was also missing from a mauling by animals overnight although Dockrill later claimed he ripped it off.

Dockrill took her lighter, CD player, a five pound note and her grey rucksack, which he took back to his bedroom at home.

He later claimed he made a second visit to the body after spending two hours in the pub but detectives say they could find no pub in the nearby area.

Later that same night he followed Rebecca Scott to her front door intending to rob her but she quickly let herself into the house.

Dockrill was first questioned by police because of his strange behaviour on the day of the attack.

On March 23 he sent text messages declaring his love to ex-girlfriends Emma Sinclair and Susan Jewers and asking them to marry him.

He was arrested the same day heading towards the home of Ms Jewers but fortunately she was out.

Dockrill told police he was a former member of the SAS but confessed to his crimes after being picked out on identity parades.

He claimed he had been taking crack cocaine in the days before the killing of Miss Aronen and made his chilling remark about ‘loving it.’

The diesel engineer also claimed she stripped off and invited him for sex only to claim she had AIDS and hit him over the head.

He said to police: ‘Have you ever seen such a beautiful blonde girl?’

Dockrill, of West Road, Stratford, denied murder due to diminished responsibility but admitted robbery, attempted robbery and two charges of causing actual bodily harm in relation to attacks on four women.

He was given an extra nine years for attacking the woman outside a gay nightclub in London Bridge on 3 November 2001, 16 months before the killing.

Dockrill had been a suspect in the rape case, but the investigation was not pursued with as the victim was unable to pick him out of an identity parade.

The 38-year-old victim rape victim, who worked as a social worker for children with behavioural problems, was openly gay and had been in gay relationships since her early 20s.

She had only stepped outside the nightclub, where she was partying with four female police officers, to make a quick phone call when she saw Dockrill urinating against a wall.

He then approached her and began talking to her, she wasn’t concerned until he took her by the arm ‘as if leading a blind person’ and began leading her towards a secluded alleyway.

The woman had recently had an operation for two slipped disks, and was unable to put up much resistance when he forced her to the ground.

When she told him she was with for police officers, he said: ‘I used to be in the SAS and now I’m a stockbroker.’

He then subjected her to a vicious and sustained attack – forcing her to remove her trousers and continually repeating ‘I know you want it’.

Prosecutor Anita Arora said: ‘he manoeuvred on top of her, most of his weight was in her chest and he pushed in order to try and get his penis in her vagina.’

‘She was feeling afraid, she didn’t have any control and she couldn’t get him off her – he was heavier than her and worried that he would hurt her.’

When she tried to scream he put both hands over her mouth and nose and pushed down, saying ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, I could do you serious damage.’

‘She couldn’t get him off her and she couldn’t alert anyone,’ Ms Arora said.

‘Her view was that she should remain passive in order to protect herself.

‘Sometimes she felt like he was trying to coerce her in order to get her to cooperate with him, saying things like “you’re lovely, I want to f*ck you”.

‘At some point she resigned herself to the fact she was going to have to do what he wanted because she wanted to get out of there alive.’

The victim remembered him getting more aggressive and piling more pressure on her chest when she tried to call for a help to a woman she thought she saw passing by.

At one point he forced her eyelids open, and she felt as if he was trying to gauge her eyes out – he ordered her to open her eyes which she did.

She was eventually able to stand up and move away after he made her sit astride him.

Ms Arora said: ‘He was saying “I could have done some serious damage , it’s your fault what you made me do” – there was no further sexual contact between them.

‘He was blaming her for what had happened, he then became very aggressive sailing “You haven’t heard the end of this, I will find you, find where your home and I’m going to kill you and your husband.’

‘He was then saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’, she was trying to calm him and said words to the effect of ‘there’s nothing to be sorry about’ – it’s something she had learned to do because it’s part of her job.’

When the woman returned to the club, her friends immediately helped her report the attack to the police.

She had extensive bruising to her back, arms, knees, elbows from where she had been forced against the concrete.