Colin Ireland

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

Ireland suffered a severely dysfunctional upbringing. He committed various crimes from the age of 16 and had served time in borstals and prisons. While living in Southend, he started frequenting the Coleherne, a gay pub in Earl's Court, London. Ireland sought men who liked the passive role and sado-masochism, so he could readily restrain them as they initially believed it was a sexual game.

Ireland said he was heterosexual: he had been twice married to women and that he pretended to be gay only to befriend potential victims. Ireland claimed that his murders were not sexually motivated. He was highly organised, and carried a full murder kit of rope, handcuffs and a full change of clothes to each murder. After killing his victim he cleaned the flat of any forensic evidence linking him to the scene and stayed in the flat until morning in order to avoid arousing suspicion from leaving in the middle of the night.

Ireland was sentenced to five counts of life imprisonment for the murders on 20 December 1993 and remained imprisoned until his death on 21 February 2012, at the age of 57.