text: 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.
  Trial, convictions and imprisonment
  Ireland was charged with the murders of Collier and Spiteri, and confessed to the other three while awaiting trial in prison. He told police that he had no vendetta against gay men, but picked on them because they were the easiest targets. Ireland pretended to be gay in order to lure his victims. He had robbed those he killed because he was unemployed at the time, and he needed funds to travel to and from London when hunting for victims.
  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."
  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.