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Ex-Fergie aide gets life for murdering lover
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A FORMER aide to Britain's Duchess of York was jailed for life on Wednesday for stabbing her American lover Tommy Cressman to death while he slept.
Jane Andrews, dressed in black, sat ashen faced but showed no emotion as the jury forewoman announced the majority 11 to one guilty verdict.
The victim's parents, Barbara and Harry Cressman, embraced each other and gasped with relief at the jury's decision.
Judge Michael Hyam told Andrews she had killed an unarmed man and left him to die "without remorse".
Andrews, 34, clubbed London-based businessman Cressman, 40, on the head with his cricket bat and then stabbed him in the chest with a large kitchen knife in revenge after he said he would not marry her.
She had told the court he was stabbed accidentally during a struggle as he tried to rape her.
During the sensational month-long trial, London's Old Bailey criminal court heard that Andrews was an "intense person".
A close friend of Andrews said her troubled relationship with Cressman had been compounded by losing her job as personal dresser to Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and popularly known as Fergie, for whom she worked for nine years until 1997. The court heard that after the killing Andrews fled to the west of England and was found three days later in her car alongside a road, having taken an overdose of painkillers.
After three days in hospital she first told police officers she knew nothing about the killing. Later she said she had acted in self-defence.
"For Jane Andrews to fabricate such allegations to try and absolve herself from responsibility of murdering Tom is unforgivable," Detective Chief Inspector Jim Dickie of the Metropolitian Police told the news conference.(SD-Agencies)
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