Colin Ireland

Investigations revealed that Spiteri had left the Coleherne pub and travelled home with his killer by train, and a security video successfully captured the two of them on the railway platform at Charing Cross station. Ireland recognised himself and decided to tell police he was the man with Spiteri but not the killer—he claimed to have left Spiteri in the flat with another man. However, police had also found fingerprints in Collier's flat, which they linked to Ireland.

Ireland died on 21 February 2012, at Wakefield Prison. A spokeswoman for Her Majesty's Prison Service said: "He is presumed to have died from natural causes; a post-mortem will follow." Later, his death was ascribed to pulmonary fibrosis and a fractured hip he had suffered earlier in the month as preliminary causes of death.

On 22 December 2006, Ireland was one of 35 life sentence prisoners whose names appeared on the Home Office's list of prisoners who had been issued with whole life tariffs and were unlikely ever to be released.

He was jailed for life for the murders in December 1993 and remained imprisoned until his death in February 2012, at the age of 57.

When his case came to the Old Bailey on 20 December 1993, Ireland admitted all charges and was given life sentences for each. The judge, Mr Justice Sachs, said he was "exceptionally frightening and dangerous", adding: "To take one human life is an outrage; to take five is carnage."

In 1982, Ireland married Virginia Zammit; the couple and her daughter lived in the Holloway area of London. In 1985, he was convicted and sentenced to six months for "going equipped to cheat". He divorced in 1987, after his wife discovered he had committed adultery. In 1989, in Devon, he married Janet Young; he was violent towards her and stole from her. In the early 1990s, they separated; she and her children became homeless. He moved to Southend-on-Sea, where he became homeless and lived in a hostel. He later moved to a flat in the town and lived there whilst visiting the Coleherne pub, the gay pub in Earl's Court, London, where he first met his victims.

In the attempt to make ends meet, Ireland had a series of manual jobs, then in December 1975, he was convicted of car theft, criminal damage and two burglaries, for which he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. Ireland was released in November 1976 and moved to Swindon, Wiltshire. He lived with a woman and her children for a few months. In 1977, he was convicted of extortion, for which he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. In 1980, he was convicted of robbery, for which he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. In 1981, he was convicted of attempted deception.

Ireland was born in Dartford, Kent to an unmarried teenage couple. Shortly after his birth, his father left him and his 17-year-old mother. He is not named on his birth certificate and Ireland did not know his identity. He was raised in poverty by his mother; they moved many times. In the early 1960s, she married. When she became pregnant, she put Ireland into care; he later returned to her. In 1966 she married another man. During the 1960s in Sheerness, Kent, Ireland was propositioned on three occasions and spied on once by men who were sexually attracted to him. In his mid-teens, he was sent to borstal for theft and whilst there deliberately set fire to another resident's belongings. At age 17, Ireland was convicted of robbery. He escaped and was returned to borstal.

Colin Ireland (16 March 1954 – 21 February 2012) was a British serial killer known as the Gay Slayer because his victims were homosexual. Criminologist David Wilson believes that Ireland was a psychopath.