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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
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How many more women did this Scots soldier kill?
Kate Foster, Murdo MacLeod and Jim McBeth
THEIR lives were on a collision course from 10.34pm on December 31. It was then that David Atkinson dropped off friends at the Fountain Bar in Cambridge. Sally Geeson was drinking in the Avery pub opposite. Atkinson’s friends describe him as "spaced" that night.
Geeson, a fun-loving 22-year-old student, would survive only minutes into the New Year before being raped and strangled. Atkinson, a 31-year-old army lance corporal from East Kilbride, serving with 23 Engineer Regiment at Waterbeach base in Cambridge, would live for a few days more before spectacularly ending his life in a Glasgow hotel. He left a suicide note confessing to killing a woman with his "bare hands" and bringing the case to a swift conclusion.
The murder of Geeson may have been quickly solved, but Atkinson’s suicide has left many questions in its wake. In the secretive, paternalistic world of the armed forces, which Scotland on Sunday reveals today houses at least 11 convicted sex offenders, how many more potential rapists and killers are being protected? Just how much did Atkinson’s army colleagues, aware of his previous violent behaviour, suspect he was capable of? And how many other lives might he have claimed?
Police are now attempting to answer this last question. One high-profile unsolved murder being reinvestigated in the light of the Geeson killing is that of 13-year-old schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Atkinson spent 10 months stationed with the Royal Engineers in Minley, Surrey, very close to where Milly disappeared three years ago, and the MoD cannot account for his whereabouts at the time of her murder.
Milly disappeared on March 21, 2002. Her body was later found on a track beside MoD land - just 100 yards from where the Royal Engineers hold their training exercises.
The army cannot account for Atkinson’s movements at the time of the schoolgirl’s disappearance as he had just left a training course in Chatham, Kent and was yet to embark upon another course. He may have been on leave at the time.
Surrey Police, who are leading Milly’s murder hunt, confirmed Atkinson was "of interest" as a possible suspect. A spokeswoman for the force said: "We are looking at David Atkinson in connection with the Milly Dowler case. He is a person of interest to us because his history might mean that he could have done this. We are liaising with the senior investigating officer of the Sally Geeson case and the Royal Military Police to see whether Atkinson was, or could have been, in the area at the time."
When Milly’s body was discovered in woodland six months after the murder, one theory to emerge was that her killer could have been connected to the military. The records of military staff were reported to have been checked at the time.
But the cause of Milly’s death was inconclusive and it was impossible to say whether she had been sexually assaulted. There was no DNA evidence and Atkinson’s DNA was not on file.
Although other high-profile suspects have been investigated over Milly’s murder - including Soham killer Ian Huntley, who murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and the M25 rapist, Antoni Imiela - the case remains unsolved.
Atkinson’s violent nature seems to have first emerged during a tour of duty in Germany.
Liane Haake, his German ex-wife, said she reported him to military police for assaults. He was alleged to have raped her and threatened her with an axe. The charges were withdrawn.
His most serious known offence before the murder of Geeson was an attack on Katrin Schyroki, a Polish woman, in 1997 when she was 18. She claimed his court martial was a "whitewash" - a charge denied by the MoD.
In circumstances similar to Geeson, Schyroki was prevented from leaving a car by Atkinson. She believes her life was saved because bystanders helped her.
Original charges of indecent assault and kidnap were dropped and Atkinson was found guilty of a lesser charge of false imprisonment. He was fined and allowed to continue with his army career.
According to sources, German police were unable to make the case against him stack up.
Clive Fairweather, a retired army colonel who served in the SAS and has a strong interest in the criminal justice system as a former Scottish prisons inspector, said he had made inquiries about the case and concluded that while the army had not been irresponsible, there were problems with the evidence produced by the German authorities.
He said: "There have been suggestions that the army was responsible for letting him off lightly, but I now don’t believe that was the case. The army was responsible for handling Atkinson and any military elements, while the local German authorities gathered evidence from and on behalf of the victim.
"When it went before the Judge Advocate, who is not an army officer but a civilian appointed by the office of the Lord Chief Justice, he found that the evidence presented by the German authorities was seriously lacking. He had to drop the more serious charges.
"Having taken advice and learned that Atkinson had been on remand for eight months already, he felt he could not impose an additional custodial sentence."
But the army may have made one mistake. At that time, because of the seriousness of the false imprisonment conviction, the British military police in Germany could, if they wished, have passed his DNA on to the British database overseen by the Home Office. However they did not do so and the MoD has launched an inquiry into why this did not happen.
Now three German police forces have requested Atkinson’s DNA in connection with a string of unsolved crimes, including a murder which took place during his tour of duty there.
Detectives in the towns of Krefeld, Mönchengladbach and Viersen in the North-Rhine Westphalia region are anxious to check Atkinson’s links to a series of sexual assaults and a murder. The main line of inquiry centres around the 1998 killing in Krefeld, the town in which Atkinson was living.
In April 1998, a 35-year old prostitute, known only as Jacqueline, was found strangled in her flat near the centre of the town.
Gerd Hoppman, the head of the Krefeld Police Murder Commission, said: "We have made a formal request with the police in England to have DNA data sent across to us. We still have DNA information available from the original scene of the crime and that will be compared with the records which we hope to receive."
Hoppman was unable to say how many other crimes Atkinson might be linked to, but said that the data would be shared with forces throughout the region and made available to detectives across Germany.
The case has inevitably raised questions about the competence of the military in dealing with armed forces personnel who commit crimes.
Scotland on Sunday has learned that while increasing numbers of troops are facing courts martial, the number dismissed following conviction has dropped sharply.
Crime in the army is dealt with by the courts martial system, which has the power to sentence a member of the forces to life imprisonment in a civilian jail.
Civilian sentences result in a dismissal in disgrace and courts martial can also order a dismissal in other serious cases. In 2003 it held 419 courts martial of which 349 found the defendant guilty. Some 103 were dismissed as a result. In 2004 the number of courts martial rose to 490 and 435 personnel were found guilty, of whom just 67 were dismissed.
Geeson’s murder is not the first time a soldier has killed while in civilian clothes after apparent warning signs were missed. In 1996, three men, Allan Ford, Justin Fowler and Jeremy Pernell, were convicted of murdering Louise Jensen, a 22-year-old Danish tour guide who worked in Cyprus, where they were stationed. Ford was supposed to be confined to barracks after assaulting a tourist three weeks earlier.
There are also uncomfortable parallels with another sexual crime in Edinburgh in February 2001 which resulted in a soldier appearing in court.
Robert Lyttle was initially charged with drugging and raping a 21-year-old student he met in a bar, but was eventually convicted only of a serious sexual assault, which was so brutal that his victim required surgery to repair the damage caused.
Lyttle was jailed in 2002 for just three years by Lady Smith, but eight weeks into his sentence, his lawyers managed to obtain interim liberation pending an appeal.
His conviction was finally quashed in October 2003 on a legal technicality, relating to the jury being misdirected by the trial judge. The army, however, had hardly covered itself in glory with its handling of Lyttle’s case. It emerged that they were aware he had been accused of a similar attack on a woman in Bangor, Northern Ireland, in 1996, but that the case had not gone to trial because she had serious mental health problems.
Detectives who investigated the 2001 attack believed that Lyttle, who was based at Redford Barracks in Edinburgh at the time, was discussed by army chiefs when news of the incident became public. They were angry that senior officers chose not to alert them to the fact that he may have been a potential suspect. In fact, it was suggested that Lyttle had been advised to ‘lie low’ and was about to be sent abroad when he was arrested.
Campaigners say there are deep-rooted cultural problems within the army that must be exposed and tackled. Des James, whose daughter Cheryl was one of four young recruits who died in mysterious circumstances at the Deepcut barracks, said the army should not be allowed to police itself.
He said: "What we have, sadly, appears to be the gross incompetence of the military to deal with people like Atkinson. They seem unable to open their doors to let the civilian police do their job."
He added: "How many more David Atkinsons are there in the armed forces? And how much longer will this type of thing go on before we have a complete culture change in our armed forces?
"I believe that there are institutional problems and I passionately believe that until there is a full public inquiry into the Deepcut deaths we will not understand the issues or how to solve the problems in the armed forces."
Atkinson’s details were last week added to Britain’s DNA database and he was not immediately linked to any unsolved murders and rapes.
However, a senior source at Strathclyde Police said that records were still being trawled to see whether he might be linked to other similar crimes where there was no forensic trail, such as in the case of Milly Dowler.
Geeson’s family are anxious for information about the chain of events that led to their daughter’s death. Her mother Sue said: "Questions will have to be asked."
The family of Milly Dowler will no doubt hold a similar view - as will the women who have come forward since Geeson’s murder, believing that Atkinson raped or sexually assaulted them.
The police, and perhaps more importantly the army, will have to provide the answers.
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