Bill Sikes

Bill Sikes is the chief villain of Oliver Twist, although Fagin is sometimes regarded as an antagonist it is Bill Sikes who provides the true villain to the story due to his violent nature and criminal tendencies - which surpassed the thieving ways of Fagin and ultimately led to murder.

Bill Sikes was a brute who regularly beat his own bull terrier to the point the animal required stitches and had no remorse over using Oliver to further his criminal gain, he was involved in a relationship with the kindly Nancy but brutally murdered her when he feared she had betrayed him - the murder Sikes committed was one of the most graphic and disturbing acts of violence that Dickens had written and transformed Sikes at once into a monster.

Bill Sikes would meet his end however when he hung himself from the street rafters while trying to escape from an angry mob that had formed to hunt him down.