Fergie's ex-aide on murder charge

A former personal assistant to the Duchess of York killed her boyfriend after he refused to marry her, a court has heard.

Jane Andrews hit businessman Thomas Cressman on the head with a cricket bat and then stabbed him with a sharp knife she had fetched from the kitchen, the Old Bailey was told.

Andrews, 34, pleads not guilty to murdering Mr Cressman, 39, at their home in Maltings Place, Fulham, west London, between September 15 and September 19 last year.

Andrews, originally from Grimsby, Lincolnshire, worked as an aide and dresser to the Duchess for nine years until 1997.

Bruce Houlder, QC, prosecuting, told the jury of 10 women and two men that Andrews had been depressed at the time of the attack and had deliberately killed Mr Cressman.

He said: "She did so when she realised that their relationship was simply not going to last and her hopes of marriage to him were evaporating.

"As the hope went out of the relationship, so the anger and jealousy rose up in her and led her to take a terrible revenge on the man she loved."

Mr Houlder added: "When someone is killed it is a terrible tragedy for all concerned. Here we have a normally friendly and decent woman who was so transformed and burnt up inside by her anger that she killed."

Mr Houlder said that Andrews had fled the house and was found four days later in a layby in the West Country. She had taken a number of painkillers and was taken to hospital.

Mr Houlder said: "She pretended she knew nothing about her boyfriend's death and she told a number of lies. This killing was not, as might first appear, a crime born simply out of the passion of the moment."