TRACIE Andrews, jailed for life last July for the roadside murder of her fiancé, Lee Harvey, has been granted leave to appeal against her conviction, West Mercia police said last night.
The former model was charged after initially appearing, cut and bruised, before television cameras to appeal for help in tracking down the man she claimed had killed Mr Harvey in a “road rage” attack.
A jury at Birmingham Crown Court took five hours to decide that the story was a cover-up, and return a unanimous verdict of guilty. Described during the four-week hearing as a woman of violent temper who had a capacity for “profound deceit”, Andrews stood with arms folded as she was sentenced.
After the trial, Mr Harvey's mother, Maureen, said: “I wanted to believe my son had died in his lover's arms and not by her hand.”
Police said that in the minutes following her savage attack on her lover with an imitation Swiss Army penknife, Andrews began concocting the charade.
The prosecution, which said police believed that Andrews hid the murder weapon down her fake snakeskin boots and disposed of it at the hospital where she was treated, asked why, if her story was true, had she not screamed for help or sounded the horn as the so-called assailants fled.
Andrews, 28, had consistently denied stabbing her lover more than 30 times during a row. She said that Mr Harvey, whom she was due to marry last summer, was attacked after they were chased while driving down dark country lanes by men in a black car who punched her and killed her 25-year-old fiancé.
A West Mercia Police spokesman said last night: “West Mercia Police can confirm that the Crown Prosecution Service have been advised by the Court of Appeal that Tracie Andrews has been given leave to appeal against her conviction. The Court of Appeal will advise us in due course as to when the appeal will be heard.”
A spokesman for the CPS said that it had not yet been notified of the grounds for the appeal.
Andrews, who shared a flat in Alvechurch, Hereford and Worcester, with her fiancé, has always denied the killing.