The Duchess of York’s former personal assistant Jane Andrews killed her lover Tommy Cressman in a jealous rage after discovering intimate e-mails between him and at least one other woman, a court heard yesterday.
Mr Cressman, 39, was found dead in his London apartment last September 16. He had been beaten with a cricket bat and stabbed with a kitchen knife. Ms Andrews, 34, who was the Duchess’ dresser for nine years until 1997, was found three days later in her car in the West Country. She had taken a large number of painkillers and was hospitalised after her arrest.
“Here we have a usually friendly and decent woman who was so transformed and burnt-up inside with her anger that she killed,” said prosecutor Bruce Holder. “She found the e-mails Mr Cressman had exchanged with a woman in Las Vegas and they were of a very strong sexual nature. As the hope went out of the relationship, so anger and jealousy rose up in her and led her to take a terrible revenge.”
Mr Cressman was described as a man who enjoyed his bachelor lifestyle, which had created tensions in his two-year relationship with Ms Andrews. She was angered by his refusal to marry her, and apart from the sexual nature of the e-mails, she would have been particularly hurt by one which described her as “like an old pair of slippers he couldn’t get rid of,” the court was told.
Mr Holder suggested that although the murder was a crime of passion, it was premeditated. Mr Cressman had called the police earlier on the day of his death to say that they were having a row and to request that “someone come round to stop us hurting each other”.
The trial continues.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
