Tracie Andrews was today found guilty of the brutal roadside murder of her fance Lee Harvey and jailed for life.
A jury a Birmingham Crown Court took just over five hours to return its unanimous guilty verdict on the 28-year-old mother of one. This afternoon her solicitor said she would appeal.
She had consistently denied stabbing her lover more than 30 times on an isolated country lane last December.
As the 12 jury members were led back into court just after 11am the clerk asked: “Do you have a verdict upon which you are all agreed?”
The jury foreman replied they had and as the verdict was read out Andrews, standing turned towards the jury in the dock of Court 9 and wearing a long black dress and pale woollen jacket, bowed her head slightly.
The guilty verdicy was greeted with gasps from the packed public gallery as Mr Harvey's mother and father, Ray and Maureen, embraced each other and closed their eyes.
The jury of nine women and three men had listened to evidence during the four-week trial of Andrew's stormy two-and-a-half year relationship with a 25-year-old unemployed bus driver.
Andrews, who gave evidence from the witness box over three days, claimed that her fiance, whom she was due to marry earlier this year, was a victim of a road rage attack.
The Court heard that in the minutes following her savage attack on her lover with a Swiss Army-style penknife she began concocting an elaborate charade of how he fell prey to a motoring maniac who struck him down at an isolated spot less than a mile from the home they shared in Alvechurch, Worcestershire.
Andrews told a news conference just hours after Mr Harvey's death that the couple's white Ford Escort RS Turbo 2000 had been chased along a four-mile route by a mystery Ford Sierra.
Sentencing Andrews to life imprisonment, Mr Justice Buckley said: “The jury have found you guilty on very strong evidence of murder. Only you know precisely what went on that night,but we have all seen the awful consequences.
“It was a tragedy for all concerned. I feel deeply for the families on both sides.
“Your counsel has said, and of course you know, there is only on sentence prescribed by law and that is life imprisonment.”
Between the judge's sentence remarks and the delivering of the verdict, Ronald Thwaites QC spoke on Andrews' behalf in mitigation.
The barrister said his remarks were intended to address the issue of the minimum recommendation the judge would decide Andrews must serve before she was considered eligible for parole.
Mr Thwaites said the case arose from a “domestic setting of a mundane character” where arguments were commonplace and mostly ended in an unremarkable fashion.
Mr Twaites said rows between the couple were usually worked out without recourse to serious physical violence, adding: “In my submission the court will have no difficulty in concluding that this killing was the result of a spontaneous outburst of passion mised with other powerful feelings that overwhelmed Miss Andrews and which she converted into immediate and deadly actions.”
Mr Twaites said the court may think that in a dark country lane Andrews may not have known how many times her weapon “struck its mark”.
FORENSIC evidence and the few witnesses who could be found combined to destroy Tracie Andrews's claim that Lee Harvey was killed in a bizarre “road rage” attack.
Andrews,28, stabbed her 25-year-old fiance Lee Harvey to death in a frenzied attack during a row as they drove to they home they shared - on and off - at Alvechurch, Worcestershire, from a pub in nearby Bromsgrove.
Exactly what happened was never clear. And Andrews did her best to make sure that the facts never emerged.
When she was found by the body of her dying fiance, she had the presence of mind to concoct a story that he was the victim of a manic attack bt a passenger in a blue Ford Sierra.
Her description of the man was vague but detailed enough to be credible - and she claimed the attacker had “starey eyes”. had also attacked her, calling her a slut and giving her a black eye.
But in the end, the weight of evidence was heavily weighted against her, and her story had too many holes to stand up to close excamination.
Andrews told the jury she loved Mr Harvey and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. But a hearing before the main trial was told that Andrews was in fact known to have a short temper, and to be violent.
She had also attacked Mr Harvey during their trubulent two-and-a-half year relationship, hiting hit with a bottle on one occassion, punching him in the face, and even biting his neck.
Police sid the couple's Sierra could not have been overtaken the Ford Escort in which Andrews and Mr Harvey were travelling because the lane in which Andrews first said it happened was too narrow to allow the two vehicles to travel side by side.
The murder weapon was never found - but Mr David Crigman QC, prosecuting, alleged that Andrews had disposed of it
Andrews denied it.But she could offer no explanation of contact bloodstains resembling such a knife inside one of her boots - which was where the prosecution said she hid the weapon after attacking Mr Harvey - except to say that she had knelt in blood.
Most tellingly of all, perhaps, Andrews made no attempt to call for help for Mr Harvey. The alarm was raised only when a passer-by.
MEMBERS of the Harvey family wept and hugged each other in the public gallery as the verdict was read.
Lee Harvey's mother Maureen was led away in tears by detectives, and was comforted by other members of the family.
Later, she said: “I feel so relieved. I didn't sleep a wink last night.
It's been such a long build-up, now I'm just delighted. We all are.”
Mr Harvey's former girlfriend Anita, and the mother of his six-year-old child, wept as she telephoned friends to tell them the news. She said she was too upset to talk about the verdict, adding: “I am very relieved - I really can't say any more at the moment.”
The Harvey family later left Birmingham Crown Court surrounded by detectives and well-wishers.
ONE of the senior detectives who investigated Lee Harvey's murder spoke of his relief that the case was finally at an end.
Speaking outside the court, Detective Inspector Steve Walters said he hoped Lee's parents could now get on with their lives after the court ordeal.
He said the guilty verdict paid testimony to the thorough and professional manner in which the police investigation had been carried out and described the killing as “A brutal murder”.