The sick crime of twisted shoe fetish killer Christopher Farrow as he is on the brink of release

Farrow was exposed as the killer of the 51-year-old receptionist six years later through advances in fingerprint technology.

He tricked his way into her home an hour after failing to get into that of a 24-year-old woman he is thought to have stalked for several days.

Farrow, then a 33-year-old painter and decorator, made Mrs Speakes take off her slippers and wear a pair of blue mule shoes.

He forced her upstairs to her bedroom, where he gagged her and bound her hands with a pair of black stockings which he had bought that afternoon.

Farrow placed a pair of her black stilletto shoes on a bedside table before carrying out a sexual attack.

At the same time he stabbed Mrs Speakes, a divorcee who lived alone, nine times in the back and shoulders and twice in the neck.

Mrs Speakes was found at the foot of her bed in a pool of blood by two friends who became worried when she did not arrive for work the next morning.

The killer left a pair of black stockings tied in loops beside the bed and part of a candlewick bedspread which he used to gag her.

Farrow was arrested in March 2000 in connection with the murder after his fingerprints were matched to one found on the handle of Mrs Speakes's front door.

He had been obliged to give his fingerprints after being arrested for drink driving in June, 1996.

Advances in computer technology four years later allowed the comparison to be made to the partial print found at the murder scene.

Once he was identified as the main suspect, bloodstains found at the house were tested and showed there was a one in 30 million chance of it being from someone other than Farrow.

Farrow, of Cookridge, Leeds, was jailed for life at Leeds Crown Court in November 2000.

He pleaded guilty to the murder and rape of Mrs Speakes in Balne Lane, Wakefield, on March 15, 1994.

Farrow also admitted the attempted burglary of another woman's house with intent to rape her less than an hour earlier.

Robert Smith, QC, prosecuting, said: "The footwear like the black shoe on the bedside table was intended to play some specific role for the purposes of sexual arousal as did the stockings."

Mr Smith added: "Farrow liked to look at shoes when he was having sex."

The prosecutor said that Farrow had told detectives: "I just saw her get off a bus as I was getting off another bus.

“I had been... thinking how crap my life was. My sex life... was absolute zero and I had a lot of upset and anger towards my girlfriend.

“I decided to do something that day to someone. I just wanted someone to suffer the same way as I was feeling."

Mr Justice Morland ordered that Farrow must serve a minimum of 18 years in prison.

But the judge added that he would recommend Farrow remain in custody for "very, very many years."