Joanna Dennehy murders: Two men accused of helping serial killer will not give evidence in their defence

Two men accused of helping serial killer Joanna Dennehy will not give evidence in their defence, a jury heard yesterday.

Dennehy, 31, has admitted murdering three men and dumping their bodies in ditches.

Her alleged accomplices Gary Stretch, 47, and Leslie Layton, 37, are currently on trial.

Karim Khalil QC, acting for Stretch, told Cambridge Crown Court his client would not take the stand to give evidence.

Layton, who is represented by Christopher Morgan, made the same decision.

Closing the prosecution case, Andrew Jackson read out a telephone conversation Stretch made while in prison.

He called his ex-partner Julie Gibbons, who is the mother of his three children.

In it Ms Gibbons asked why Dennehy "did it."

Stretch responded: "Well she’s just that way, she’s just that way I suppose. You know what I mean, she's off her head."

Ms Gibbons said: "So why didn't you run a mile?

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Lee Rigby trial: alleged killer showed 'no signs of remorse'

Murdered soldier Lee Rigby  Photo: MoD By Agencies

12:46PM GMT 04 Dec 2013

One of Lee Rigby's killers boasted he was no threat to the public or police but was a 'continued risk to the military,' after hacking the Fusilier to death, a court has heard.

Michael Adebolajo, 28, who tried to behead the soldier on May 22, showed 'no signs of regret or remorse,' jurors were told.

When he was assessed by a psychiatrist two days later the expert ruled there were no concerns with Adebolajo's mental health then or in the lead up to the murder.

Neither had the self-styled Muslim extremist been drinking alcohol or taking illicit substances, jurors heard.

Oliver Glasgow, prosecuting, said Adebolajo appeared 'polite and cooperative.'

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The killer also denied being depressive, suicidal or wanting to self harm.

He claimed he was supported by his family and said at that point his 'principal concern' was that he believed his actions had caused them distress.

Jurors were told Adebolajo had spent two spells in a young offenders institution when he was younger but had never been in trouble for violence before.

He told a psychiatrist the events of May 22 were 'planned' and his actions were down to his religious beliefs.

"I pose no risk to the public or police but would be a continuing risk to the military,' he allegedly added.

The Old Bailey heard he also praised medical staff caring for him in hospital after armed police shot him..

Mr Glasgow said: "The defendant said he was impressed and grateful for the care he was receiving having assumed that after what he had done to a soldier he would be poorly treated and denied access to his spiritual needs."

Adebolajo, of Romford, east London, who has asked to be known as Mujaahid Abu Hamza in court, and Adebowale from Greenwich, south east London, who wants to be known as Ismail Ibn Abdullah, deny Fusilier Rigby's murder, attempting to murder a police officer and conspiracy to murder a police officer.

Both men have already pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

The trial continues.

 CrimeNews »UK News »Law and Order »

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Female serial killer Joanna Dennehy admits three murders: 'I've pleaded guilty and that's that'

Serial killer: Joanna Dennehy

The Old Bailey was stunned into silence yesterday as Joanna Dennehy issued her shock guilty plea.

The 31-year-old had been expected to deny the brutal knife murders of three men and dumping their bodies in ditches before being formally sent for trial.

Instead she shocked the court, including her own defence team, by confessing to the serial killings

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19 Nov 2013 11:23She and a pal squirted shampoo in the gran's eyes, cut her, gagged her, crammed her in a bin and dumped her in a canal         

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Female serial killer admits three murders

(Clockwise from top left) Serial killer Joanna Dennehy, victims John Chapman, Lukasz Slaboszewski and Kevin Lee  Photo: SWNS/Newsteam By Hayley Dixon

11:55AM GMT 18 Nov 2013

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A female serial killer has admitted murdering three men before dumping their bodies in ditches.

Joanna Dennehy admitted killing Kevin Lee, 48, Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, and John Chapman, 56, who were found with multiple stab wounds between March and April this year.

Mr Lee's body was discovered dumped in a ditch in Newborough, Cambridgeshire, on March 30, and her other two victims were found a short distance away at Thorney Dyke.

Dennehy, 30, also admitted the attempted murders of two other men, John Rogers and Robin Bereza.

The pleas appeared to take her defence barrister Nigel Lickley QC by surprise.

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Mr Lickley said: "The course is not one I had anticipated. We ask for more time given what has just occurred."

Dennehy, who sat in the dock of the court, said she did not want to talk to anyone and added: "I have pleaded guilty and that's it."

She also pleaded guilty to three counts of preventing the lawful burial of all three murder victims.

Her partner, 7ft 3inches tall Gary Stretch, 47, denied the two attempted murders and helping Dennehy to dump the bodies.

Gary Stretch and Joanna Dennehy

Leslie Layton, 47, and Robert Moore, 55, have previously denied helping to cover up the alleged murders and harbouring Stretch and Dennehy when they were wanted by police. Their trial is due in January.

Property developer Mr Lee was discovered on the morning of March 30 in a ditch by the A16 at Newborough.

A post-mortem examination later showed the 48-year-old died as a result of stab wounds to the chest.

Four days later on April 3 police were called to Fenland field in Thorney, near Peterborough, after a member of the public stumbled across the bodies of Lukasz Slaboszewski and John Chapman.

Mr Slaboszewski had been stabbed in the heart. John Chapman was stabbed in the neck and chest.

It is said Mr Slaboszewski was murdered between March 19 and 29, while both Mr Chapman and Mr Lee were allegedly killed on March 29.

The two attempted murders were said to have happened on April 2.

Dennehy objected to her lawyers being given more time to check her guilty pleas, saying: "I'm not coming back down here again just to say the same stuff. It's a long way to come to say the same thing I have just said.'

Mr Justice Sweeney noted: "She has pleaded guilty to a large number of counts, clearly intentionally, and in the circumstances if there is to be any application for a change than I will consider it but otherwise she has pleaded guilty."

The judge ordered that Dennehy's defence team notify the court by Monday if there is to be any application to vacate the pleas entered.

All defendants are in custody.

 CrimeNews »UK News »Hayley Dixon »

In politics

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Female serial killer admits murdering three men before dumping their bodies in ditches

By Alice Philipson

9:00PM GMT 18 Nov 2013

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A female serial killer has pleaded guilty to murdering three men before dumping their bodies in ditches.

Joanna Dennehy stabbed her landlord Kevin Lee, 48, and housemates Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, and John Chapman, 56, within days of each other.

The body of Mr Lee, who was a married father, was found stabbed to death in a roadside ditch in March. Four days later, a farmer found the corpses of the two other men in a remote dyke five miles away.

A post mortem found Mr Slaboszewski, who was unemployed, had been stabbed in the heart.

Dennehy, 30, from Peterborough, appeared in the dock in a white shirt with a star tattooed under her right eye. She stood alongside her boyfriend Gary Richards, who is 7ft 3in tall, and also known as Gary Stretch.

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Killer driver's sentence slashed 'because he is French'

By Ben Riley-Smith, and agencies

2:27PM GMT 15 Nov 2013

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A French motorist who killed a "loving" father-of-two while using the wrong side of the road has been freed because he normally drives on the right.

Alexis Sebastien Fleury, 25, should be blamed less than an Englishman for the fatal accident because he was driving correctly under French rules, a top judge said.

Fleury's sentence for causing the death of 62-year-old David Crane, a charity fundraiser who cared for his disabled wife, was slashed in half, meaning he will walk free next week.

The judges sitting at London's Criminal Appeal Court said that Fleury had lower culpability for the "mistake" on account of his nationality.

Mr Justice Irwin said: "As a Frenchman, used to driving on the right hand side of the road, he remained on the right hand side of the road after his U-turn."

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