MILLY Dowler’s murderer is being linked to 24 other violent attacks and rapes over two decades including an unsolved violent attack on a Hastings woman, it has been revealed.

Levi Bellfield is being linked to dozens of attacks including three in Sussex which, if proved, would make him one of the country’s worst serial attackers of women in history.

Among the cases being re-examined is the attack on medical technician Sarah Spurrell 13 years ago, as reported by The Sunday Times.

Bellfield is currently serving two whole-life tariff sentences but is challenging his conviction for abducting, raping, torturing and finally strangling 13-year-old Milly Dowler after a 14-hour ordeal in 2002.

The former nightclub doorman has also been convicted of two other murders and an attempted murder.

Officers from the national police serious crime analysis section (SCAS) collated intelligence on a series of unsolved attacks in London and the South East, including Sussex, matching Bellfield’s residence in the country prior to his first conviction in 2008 but the dossier never came to light until now.

Mrs Spurrell was 23 in January 2004 when, while walking to a friend’s house, she was violently struck three times around the head with a blunt object in Laton Road, Hastings.

She was only saved from further injury by a car turning into the street which caused her balaclava-wearing attacker to flee.

She still suffers from panic attacks sparked by the incident.

She told The Sunday Times she was convinced her attacker was Bellfield and that his intention was to kill her and make her the next “Milly”.

The SCAS identified Bellfield as a suspect but did not inform Mrs Spurrell and the investigation was dropped after his conviction for murder was secured with resources diverted elsewhere because he was behind bars.

Other attacks linked to Bellfield include a second attack three hours later in the same road, Laton Road in Hastings, as the one on Mrs Spurrell.

Another attack in St Leonards where a woman was attacked from behind with a blunt object outside her house is also being linked to Bellfield.