MURDERER Mark Hobson was branded "pure evil" today after he tried to blame alcohol for his horrific and bloody killing of four people.

The devastated boyfriend of victim Diane Sanderson said: "I don't care what he says. He can't blame alcohol or anything else for what he did. He is just a sick, depraved and evil man."

Horrified Ian Harrison, 38, spoke to the Evening Press after quadruple killer Hobson revealed for the first time how booze drove him to slaughter 27-year-old twin sisters Diane and Claire Sanderson and pensioners James and Joan Britton.

He claimed in letters sent to a friend from his prison cell: "When the booze took hold, I couldn't control myself.

"Claire stirred something within me that comes out when I've had a drink."

It is the first time in 18 months cracks have appeared in 36-year-old Hobson's wall of silence.

But Mr Harrison, of Park Grove, Selby, said: "Nothing can wipe away what he did. He can't say anything that would make a difference to how much I hate him.

"Diane and Claire's parents feel the same.

"Even if Hobson got down on his bended knees and begged us for forgiveness it wouldn't have any affect.

"He is just pure evil and I hope he rots in hell."

Mr Harrison vented his feelings after one of Hobson's friends revealed the killer had written to her from Wakefield Prison and confessed how "he hated himself and wished he could turn the clock back".

Speaking to a national Sunday newspaper, Donna Kemp, 31, said: "He doesn't like to dwell on the past, but he said that he and Claire rowed on the day he killed her and he flipped and went on to murder them all.

"It was the booze more than the drugs which sent him over the edge, as Mark says in his letters."

Hobson reportedly told his former neighbour: "At first I couldn't remember what had happened. Now the memories are coming back and they do haunt me.

"As I try to sleep, I remember what I did. I get nightmares. It haunts me."

But Mr Harrison retorted: "I hope it is Diane and Claire haunting him. I'm glad he gets nightmares. I hope he never sleeps again for what he did.

"He should be locked up in his cell with nothing else to do but think about what he has done."

Hobson said he spends his time practising tai chi and making matchbox jewellery cases, and had passed a maths A-level and GCSE English. He boasted he would one-day have "more qualifications than Stephen Hawking".

But Mr Harrison said: "It doesn't matter how many qualifications he gets.

"He'll never be able to use them. He's never going to be released and that is it.

"When he launched his appeal that really set me back - but now at least I know he'll rot in jail. And when he's dead he'll rot in hell."

Hobson was jailed for life after admitting the murders of his girlfriend of 18 months, Claire Sanderson, and her twin sister, Diane, at their flat in Camblesforth, near Selby.

A court heard he battered Claire 17 times with a hammer and sexually tortured her sister before killing pensioners James Britton, 80, and wife Joan, 82, at their home in Strensall, York.

But he never spoke about what turned him into a monster before opening up to Ms Kemp and "saying sorry" for his bloody crimes.

But the twins' father, George Sanderson, 57, a former shipyard worker, speaking to the Evening Press from their home in East Cowick, said: "It doesn't matter what Hobson says, he's just pure evil.

"Alcohol doesn't make you do what he did. It's because he's such a twisted person.

"He can never say sorry to us. We can't even look at our daughters' photographs without thinking about what he did. It's too hard to even talk about it, and whatever he says won't make any difference."

Updated: 14:05 Monday, January 09, 2006