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| Plastic surgery: Road Rage killer Tracie Andrews outside hospital after undergoing a £5,000 cosmetic operation to improve her looks |
One of Britain's most notorious female murderers has been given £5,000 of cosmetic surgery on the Health Service.
Tracie Andrews is serving a life sentence after stabbing Lee Harvey to death and claiming he was the victim of a road rage attack.
But last week she was let out of Send prison, near Woking, Surrey, for four days to have an operation to realign her protruding jaw.
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| Plastic surgery: Road Rage killer Tracie Andrews outside hospital after undergoing a £5,000 cosmetic operation to improve her looks |
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| Chin job: Andrews, who now calls herself Tia Carter, had surgery to realign her protruding jaw at the expense of the taxpayer |
It is thought she is preparing for release as early as 2011, just 15 years after the murder of her boyfriend.
The murderess, 40 - who has had a string of lesbian affairs behind bars and now calls herself Tia Carter - was spotted outside the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford after the operation.
Yesterday Mr Harvey's mother Maureen, 63, from Birmingham, said: “I am outraged that cosmetic surgery has been arranged for her.
“She might be able to change her looks to disguise herself but she will never be able to change the way she is inside. She is evil.”
Andrews was taken to the hospital by taxi for the three-hour operation to break and reset her lower jaw last week.
She stayed in a private room under the name Stacey Carter, a Sunday newspaper reported.
After the operation, which would have cost the NHS around £5,000, she was seen outside the hospital in a wheelchair.
She was with a prison officer but he used a mobile phone and walked 100 yards away from Andrews - who was not handcuffed - leaving her for about six minutes, according to the report.
Yesterday Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: “It should be very rare that cosmetic surgery is paid for with taxpayers' money through the NHS, that is supposed to be used to treat the sick and injured.
“Ordinary taxpayers would be horrified to learn that they are paying thousands of pounds for cosmetic surgery for a convicted murderer. It should never have been allowed.”
It was in December 1996 that Mr Harvey, 25, bled to death in a country lane.
Andrews concocted a story that he had been murdered by a wild-eyed maniac.
But it was Andrews herself who cut her fiance's throat and stabbed him 37 times.
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| Andrews before her operation (left) and murdered fiancee Lee Harvey (right) | |
The 21-day trial at Birmingham Crown Court heard of her violent attacks on Mr Harvey and former boyfriends and of the forensic evidence which showed she must have been the killer.
Neighbours in Alvechurch, Worcestershire, said they frequently heard shouting matches at the couple's flat.
During a journey home from the pub their relationship finally exploded. Andrews used a Swiss Army-type penknife believed to have been in the glove compartment of the car
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| Recovering: Andrews is pushed in a wheelchair outside a hospital in Surrey after undergoing facial surgery |
She was jailed for life, with a recommendation that she serve at least 14 years.
A year ago she was given her first taste of freedom when she was briefly allowed out of jail, handcuffed to a prison guard.
She will become eligible for release on licence in July 2011 and has started the process of being moved to an open prison ahead of that.
The parole board is expected to meet soon to discuss the terms of her release.
Last night Prison Service sources insisted that the operation was not done for purely cosmetic reasons but was ‘required medical treatment’. The source stressed that it was not as a result of an assault on Andrews in prison.
In a statement, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “We do not comment on the healthcare of individual prisoners.
“The need for medical treatment is a decision made by medical professionals and is the same treatment including remedial work as would be available in the community.”