Fairley, the Fox, was unrepentant when arrested. He was sorry, he said, not for what he had done but because he had been caught. On the occasion one of his victims was shot in the hand, Fairley said the gun ‘went off’, and this seems likely, since he had no experience of firearms. On subsequent occasion when he used it to threaten his victims, he said, it was not loaded. We shall never know if this is true. ‘I never wanted to hurt anybody,’ he said. His defence barrister told St Albans Crown Court that Fairley ‘had no clear idea of right and wrong’. Fairley said, ‘I wanted to stop it but I couldn’t. When I got the gun I felt I could get what I wanted’.

Sentencing Fairley, in February, 1985, Justice Caulfield told him,’ There are degrees of wickedness beyond condemnatory description. Your crimes fall within this category. You desecrated and defiled men and women in their own homes… You are a decadent advertisement for evil pornographers.’

Fairley was given six life sentences for his crimes.