A JUDGE has ordered that 59-year-old Robin Ligus be locked up indefinitely in a secure hospital.

In July a jury found Ligus was responsible for 57-year-old Brian Coles' death at Mr Coles’ Higher Heath home in October, 1994.

He also murdered 53-year-old Shropshire antique dealer Trevor Bradley, whose body was found in a burnt out car at Melverley in April the same year.

Ligus, who used to live in Shrewsbury, was acquitted of involvement in the death of Bernard Czyzewska, whose body was found in the River Severn in Shrewsbury in November, 1994.

At Birmingham Crown Court last week Mr Justice Colman Treacy warned Ligus that his incarceration at the hospital was likely to be a “permanent state of affairs” based on the evidence he had seen in relation to the murders of Mr Coles and Mr Bradley.

Ligus was told he would now be moved from Woodhill Prison in Milton Keynes to a medium secure unit at St Andrew’s Hospital in Northampton.

The judge said he had taken the advice of clinical experts before sentencing.

They suggested Ligus should not be detained in a high security unit because of his “vulnerability” to abuse from other patients.

Ligus, who appeared via video link from prison, showed no emotion as he was sentenced.

At a previous hearing Mr Justice Treacy had ruled that Ligus, who was jailed for life in 1996 for the killing of Robert Young, 75, in Shrewsbury in October, 1994, was unfit to plead in relation to the three other deaths, because of his mental condition.

Ligus was charged by West Mercia police with the murders of all three men in September last year after a cold case review.