The Daily Telegraph, 4 December 1996

Woman tells of deadly cat and mouse car chase

The fiancée of a motorist stabbed 15 times in a road rage attack described yesterday the frightening “cat and mouse” car chase, reaching 60mph along country lanes, that led to his murder.

Tracie Andrews, 27, spoke of the “ordinary night out” that turned to tragedy when she and Lee Harvey found their Ford Escort turbo being tail-gated by two men in a Sierra. She said: “I was shouting at Lee to slow down - just ignore them, stop the car.”

But he kept trying to shake off their pursuers as they raced through lanes near their home in Alvechurch, Worcs, on Sunday night. “Lee was slowing down and then going fast,” Miss Andrews said. “He was doing about 60mph on the lanes. It was a case of Lee and the other car playing cat and mouse for a while.”

Miss Andrews, a former part-time model, joined 25-year-old Mr Harvey's parents at a news conference in Redditch in appealing for help in tracing the killer. She has told police that, although her fiancé had an argument with the other driver - “calling each other names, with a lot of swearing going on” - it was the passenger who pulled a knife. She said he had “starey eyes, as though he had been taking something”.

The attacker punched her as she tried to protect Mr Harvey. Her left eye was bruised and there was a slash over her eyebrow as she spoke at the news conference.

Miss Andrews said she and Mr Harvey had gone to Bromsgrove for a drink while her mother looked after her daughter, aged five. The chase began as they overtook the Sierra on the A38 after leaving the Marlbrook public house at just after 10pm.

“They were coming up behind and flashing their lights,” Miss Andrews said. When the two cars stopped three miles away near Alvechurch there was a slanging match between the drivers. Eventually the other driver walked back to his car and the passenger got out.

“I saw this lad hit Lee,” Miss Andrews said. “I told him to eff-off and he called me a slut and punched me. When I got up he was walking back to the car.” Miss Andrews said she did not realise how serious Mr Harvey's injuries were until someone approached with a torch and she saw the blood. “I tried to think of everything I should do,” she said. “I put my coat over him. I tried to stop the bleeding and comfort him.”

Mr Harvey, who had a five-year-old daughter by an earlier relationship, died almost at once from stab wounds. Miss Andrews said: “Neither of us knew them. It was a stupid, vile thing that can come out of just a car chase.”


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