‘She would still be alive today’: Sally Anne Bowman’s mother blasts Australian officials for deporting killer Mark Dixie without warning UK he was arrested over horrific attack on lone woman

• Mark Dixie was jailed for life for the brutal rape and murder of London teenager 
• The former pub chef had lived in Western Australia between 1996 and 1999  
• His DNA was also found on underwear of student who was raped and stabbed 
• Dixie also arrested but released after Perth woman was ‘savagely’ assaulted 

The mother of Sally Anne Bowman said today her daughter’s monstrous murderer would never have been free to kill her if Australian police had ‘done their job properly’ after it was revealed he may have been habitually attacking women abroad.

Mark Dixie brutally raped and murdered 18-year-old Sally Anne near her home in Croydon, south London, in September, 2005, in a crime that shocked Britain. 

Sally Ann, a fashion student who dreamed of being a Vogue cover girl, was stabbed seven times and then raped by Dixie.

The father of three, who worked as a pub cook, finally admitted the killing to detectives in January 2015, seven years after he was jailed for a minimum of 34 years for the murder.

Dixie also confessed to two more London attacks which led to two more life sentences – raping a woman in 1986 when he was only 16, and bludgeoning a woman with a knife sharpener and threatening to kill her in 2002. He also confessed to the rape of a woman in Spain in 2003, for which another man spent 12 years in prison.

Criminologist David Keatley, from Perth’s Murdoch University, says Dixie should also be investigated over other crimes in Western Australia, where he lived for three years until being deported in 1999 for overstaying his visa. 

Sally Ann’s mother Linda told the Mirror today: ‘We now know he was arrested at least three times in Australia but he was deported without any warnings being issued by the authorities. They didn’t do their job properly and that’s the reason my daughter’s dead.

Dixie in 2008 was ordered to served at least 34 years behind bars for the notorious murder of Ms Bowman (pictured), a hairdresser and model, in Croydon, south London, in 2005

Sally Ann’s mother Linda told the Mirror today: ‘We now know he was arrested at least three times in Australia but he was deported without any warnings being issued by the authorities. They didn’t do their job properly and that’s the reason my daughter’s dead’

‘He should have been returned with a police escort and documentation that explained why they had suspicions about him but instead they just stuck him on a plane and said see you later.

‘He was a known sex attacker when he was deported from Australia but he wasn’t put on any register.

‘We could have had his DNA at that time which would have meant he would have been caught before he killed Sally Anne.’

Dixie murdered Sally Ann Bowman (pictured), raping her as she lay dying from numerous stab wounds he had inflicted 

Dixie was arrested the following year by chance after having a fight in a pub and was linked to Ms Bowman’s gruesome murder through his DNA.  

The depraved killer had lived and worked in Western Australia – including the Perth suburbs of Maylands, Subiaco, Como and Victoria Park – from 1996 to 1999 before being deported from Australia for overstaying his visa, the West Australian reported. 

He had previously lived in Sydney since 1993, when he first arrived in Australia. 

For the first time it has been revealed that in 1997, a year after Dixie’s arrival in Western Australia, he was questioned by police after a woman was savagely assaulted while walking home in Victoria Park, inner Perth. 

The woman was shoved to the ground by a man who held her down and only fled after she screamed for help.  

Dixie was arrested nearby but never charged due to a lack of evidence as the woman could not positively identify her attacker.  

He was also a suspect in the Claremont serial killings, which occurred between 1996 and 1997, until his DNA ruled him out. 

Dixie was later linked to an attack on a 19-year-old female Thai university student inside her home in Leederville in June 1998.

The woman, who was stabbed seven times and raped while unconscious, testified during Dixie’s 2008 trial for Ms Bowman’s murder that a man had broken into her home before the attack unfolded.

The trial was told Dixie’s DNA matched a sample that was taken from the woman’s underwear. 

Miss Bowman, who dreamed of being a Vogue cover girl, was pictured out with friends before she was attacked and killed by Dixie

No arrests were made. An identikit image was released following the attack, with the man described as having curly hair and being about 25 years old. 

Dixie, who was 27 at the time, had been pictured over the years with curly hair.

Leading criminologist Dr David Keatley, from Murdoch University, told the West Australian it was likely Dixie had committed other crimes in the state and called for an inquiry and a review into DNA evidence.  

‘If time and resources permit, the police should be setting up a task force to see if he is responsible for other unsolved or unknown crimes,’ Dr Keatley said.

‘I agree that based on the pattern of evidence and cases that I have looked at it is highly likely that Mark Dixie is responsible for more crimes, almost certainly crimes of a sexual nature.’

Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, who lead the inquiry into Ms Bowman’s murder, said outside court after Dixie was sentenced to a minimum of 34 years in February 2008 he was ‘still convinced’ the killer ‘has done something somewhere in Australia’. 

‘If he has committed another shocking murder somewhere, it is in Australia,’ Det-Supt Cundy said.  

Dixie, under the alias Shane Turner, was fined $716 in Busselton Magistrate’s Court while living in Western Australia after being charged with willful exposure, driving without a licence and possession of cannabis. 

The willful exposure charge came after a naked Dixie jumped out in front of a woman while she was out jogging in the Dunsborough area.    

In 2015, Dixie sensationally admitted brutally raping a woman in Spain for which another man had spent nearly 12 years in prison. 

Dixie broke down in prison and confessed to raping the Spanish woman during a drink and drug-fuelled rage in the seaside resort of Fuengirola in August 2003.

Two years later Dixie admitted to raping another woman after ambushing her in a car park in 1987 and battering another victim with a knife sharpener in 2002. 

He was handed two more life sentences for the two further sex attacks. 

Western Australia Police revealed in 2015 it had no plans to extradite Dixie back to the state and the 1998 attack in Leederville had been ‘exhaustively investigated’.

Western Australia Police were contacted for but declined to comment.  

Innocent man jailed for Mark Dixie rape says: ‘He ruined my life’

Romano van der Dussen was wrongly jailed for an attack Dixie carried out in Spain

An innocent man was wrongly jailed for a sex attack committed by Mark Dixie.

Dixie attacked a woman in Spain in 2003, for which Dutchman Romano van der Dussen was wrongly sent to jail. 

He was only released when the conviction was overturned 12 years later.

As Dixie was handed another two life sentences for the 1987 and 2003 attacks in 2017, Mr Van der Dussen said Miss Bowman would not have been murdered had Spanish police properly investigated the attack he was wrongly implicated in.

The Dutchman told The Sun: ‘He ruined my life and if the Spanish police had done their job Sally Anne would be alive today.’ 

Mr Van der Dussen was released from a Spanish prison in 2016,  eight months after Dixie made the confession to Mr Dussen’s lawyer in Durham prison. 

A DNA test in Holland later confirmed Dixie’s link to the crime. 

Dixie’s DNA had been found at the scene of one of the attacks, but never traced by Spanish police. No DNA from Mr Van der Dussen was found at any of the crime scenes. 

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