I AM often asked who is the worst offender I have ever written about during the 36 years I have covered crime for The Jattvibe.
It is impossible to grade serial killers, terrorists, rapists and paedophiles by the level of their wickedness, and it is insulting to their victims to do so.

John and Lynn Williams at the funeral of their eight-year-old son Sean, who was murdered by Colin Hatch Credit: Alamy

Paedo killer Colin Hatch’s crime was unimaginable – and his actions in court made it all the worse Credit: PA:Press Association
However, from a professional perspective, one offender managed to get under my skin more than any other: Colin Hatch.
That wretched specimen of humanity continues to play on my mind more than 32 years after seeing him jailed for life at the Old Bailey for the murder of eight-year-old Sean Williams.
Hatch was utterly remorseless and positively enjoyed listening to the harrowing evidence of Sean’s final moments at his trial.
He grinned and revelled in the suffering of Sean’s family, publican parents John and Lynn, and older sister Sarah, as they watched from the public gallery.

Sean’s funeral procession filed through East Finchley – past the block of flats where his body was found Credit: Alamy

Floral tributes were laid at Sean’s funeral Credit: Shutterstock Editorial
It is the only time in my career when I have been tempted to leap from the press bench into the dock, tantalisingly just a few feet away.
Even today, a small part of me still wonders – or fantasizes – whether losing my career and facing jail time would have been worth wiping the smile off Hatch’s face.

Hatch was a 21-year-old paedophile with a history of sexual assaults on young boys when he murdered Sean on 19 July 1994.
Sean was riding his BMX around the Norfolk Close estate in East Finchley, North London, when Hatch lured him into the high rise flat where he lived with his brother and mother.

After strangling Sean and simulating a sex act on him, Hatch wrapped his near naked body in plastic bin liners, leaving it in the council tower block’s lift where it was discovered by a postman.
Hatch committed Sean’s murder but the criminal justice system helped facilitate it through an abject failure to deal with a ticking time bomb destined to kill.
He had been freed from prison three months earlier for an identical attack on an eight-year-old boy who survived.
His catalogue of sex crimes began when he was just 15 and tried to sexually assault a boy of 14 at his then home in Golders Green.

Four days later he took another 14-year-old boy home and stripped and sexually assaulted him.
Hatch was given a two-year supervision order for those offences and six months later he pinned a boy 11 to a bed and simulated sex with him.
Another pointless supervision order was dished out to him.
In May 1990, Hatch, by then 18, lured a paper boy into the East Finchley flat where he was now living and indecently assaulted him.

Two months later Hatch dragged a 10-year-old boy cyclist into the lift where he later left Seans’ body, and indecently assaulted him.
Hatch received a two-year probation order for those two offences, stipulating that he live in a South London bail hostel and attend psychotherapy at the Portman Clinic to deal with his twisted perversion.
Lo and behold, the day after attending his first appointment at the clinic, Hatch pounced on the eight-year-old boy in Stretham, South London.
He took the boy to a derelict laundry room at a block of flats and throttled him until he was unconscious.
Hatch’s own lawyer, Mark Tomassi, told Inner London Crown Court: “There will come a time, on his release, when he will take someone’s life.”
A senior consultant psychiatrist, Dr Anthony Wilkins, appealed for Hatch to be sent to Broadmoor.
But the Berkshire special hospital for the criminally insane refused, saying he was not dangerous enough and effectively sealing Sean’s fate.
Instead, Hatch was jailed for three-and-a-half years and released 16 months later to return home and re-attend psychotherapy sessions at the Portman Clinic.
Hatch missed his first two appointments and the third was scheduled to happen four days after Sean was murdered.
Sean’s mother, Lynn, and father, John, had recently taken over The George pub on the small estate.

They were unaware that Hatch was nicknamed The Doorman by locals because he used to stand at the entrance to his flats watching children playing.
Lynn last saw Arsenal-mad Sean riding his BMX bike in the pub car park at teatime that day and he called out, “Love you, mum,” as she popped to the nearby shops.
Minutes earlier, Hatch had tried to entice a 12-year-old boy into his flat by saying he had a new Nintendo game and that he needed help to get it working.
The boy was saved when a woman got into the flat lifts – and Hatch then turned his sights on Sean.

Killer Colin Hatch, 21, leaving Hendon Magistrates Court after being charged with the murder Of Sean Williams Credit: Shutterstock Editorial

After 36 years in the job, crime editor Mike Sullivan says Hatch was the worst offender he laid eyes on Credit: Paul Edwards
Hatch was swiftly arrested and charged with Sean’s murder.
In his mother’s bedroom wardrobe, police discovered a disturbing array of hand-written child sex fantasies, which Hatch had astonishingly began writing in jail and nobody ever checked.
From behind bars, he wrote: “When I get out, I am going to make up for this missed time.
“I am going to have as many as possible. Young girls and boys.

“I enjoy feeling power. To rule over lesser persons, less physically strong than me.”
In other warped notes, Hatch wrote of a girl crying for her mother as he choked her to death – and wrapping her body in bin bags and disposing of her in a cemetery.
Hatch issued an unusual statement following his first court appearance at Hendon Magistrates’ Court four days after Sean’s, in which he apologised to the boy’s family.
In the statement read by his solicitor outside court, Hatch also blamed a lack of supervision he received following his release from jail for leading him to kill Sean.

Hatch was strangled in jail by fellow inmate Damien Fowkes, 36 Credit: Collect

Fowkes attacked Hatch at Full Sutton prison, one of Britain’s most secure jails Credit: PA:Press Association
His crocodile tears were exposed in January the following year during his 10-day Old Bailey trial, where Hatch denied Sean’s murder but admitted manslaughter through diminished responsibility.
It quickly became apparent that Hatch was enjoying the evidence presented to the court by prosecutor John Bevan.
It was not an involuntary nervous smile but a triumphant celebration of evil which manifested itself in near physical exaltation.
His smirk was still there as Sean’s grieving family gasped out ‘Yes’ as Hatch was convicted of murder.

Not even the whole life sentence handed down by Judge Nina Lowry was enough to wipe the grin off his face as he left the dock.
However, it’s doubtful Hatch was smiling when, aged 38, a psychopath strangled him with ligatures torn from bed sheets at Full Sutton jail in February 2011.
Damien Fowkes, who had a hatred of child killers, was jailed for life with a minimum tariff of 20 years for the manslaughter of Hatch and attempted murder of Soham killer Ian Huntley the previous year.
I have never believed in the death penalty though Colin Hatch challenged that opinion. His very existence was an affront to natural justice.
Ultimately, however, there was nothing to celebrate about his death by the law of the jungle.
In my opinion it would have been better if he had been left to rot – if that could have been guaranteed.