We are devastated by Kevin’s death. He was a wonderful husband, loving brother and son. His naturally infectious personality touched everyone who knew him. He will be hugely missed by all his friends and family.

LEE FAMILY STATEMENT FOLLOWING THE TRIAL

Before Lukasz Slaboszewski was murdered, Kevin Lee had confided in his wife that he was having an affair. Whether or not Joanne Dennehy’s name was mentioned is unknown. What brought about this confession is also unknown. Maybe it was Cristina’s intuition based upon her husband’s recent, suspicious behaviour had caused her to confront him. Her reaction is also unknown. According to police it seems that Kevin had told his wife that ‘someone had been murdered’ by Dennehy but not necessarily the recent nature of the killing, and allegedly Cristina did tell him to stay away from Dennehy for his own safety. I have written to Kevin’s family to try and confirm all of this but without making a ‘donation’ of sorts, they refused to comment further and one must respect their wishes.

Lee was now in deep trouble. Any right-minded man would have gone straight to the police when Dennehy first told him of a man being murdered, instead he loaned her money to buy an old car so that the body could be disposed of. Hopefully, this would be the end of the matter..

Nevertheless, like many of the men who were drawn to Joanne Dennehy, Kevin Lee could not stay away because by then he was completely infatuated with her. Then, on Good Friday, 2013, the day of his murder, he did something really foolish. Unaware that John Chapman was lying in a pool of congealing blood at 38 Bifield, he sent her an Easter card. Later the same day she phoned him and they arranged to rendezvous at 11 Rolleston Garth, but Dennehy’s intentions were not focused on sex – she had a third murder in mind. Later, she admitted that the killing of Kevin Lee was premeditated and well planned. In a March 2013 letter to Julie Gibbons, she wrote:

This letter again shows that Dennehy and Stretch may have planned to murder Kevin, who was last seen alive at 2pm that Good Friday in an HMV store in the Queensgate Shopping Mall, Peterborough. He bought four music CDs – two for his wife, the others – one featuring Bobby Womack and one by the band The xx – for Dennehy. However, what he didn’t know was that Joanne was apparently furious with him. Before the killing of Lee, Stretch had confided in a teenage girl (name removed at judge’s order) that Kevin hadn’t paid Dennehy for work she had done at Rolleston Garth and that she was getting stressed and Lee was harassing her.

‘She will kill him,’ Stretch told the teenager, and the young girl confirmed this at Dennehy’s trial.

After dropping off two of the CDs at his home, Kevin drove over to 11 Rolleston Garth in his light blue Ford Mondeo estate car, registration number Y32 0JB. There, he stripped naked and slipped into something more comfortable: a black sequined dress belonging to Joanne, to be precise.

Whatever was this man thinking of, you might ask. Kevin was serially cheating on his loving and extremely attractive wife, effectively betraying his children into the bargain. He knew that there had been a murder and he had conspired with his lover to provide her with a vehicle to dump the body. Yet, while oblivious to the fact that a second man had been slaughtered in another of his firm’s properties, he bought Joanne an Easter card and a couple of CDs, then visited her, knowing she wanted to rape him while he was wearing one of her black dresses.

There has been some debate as to whether Dennehy dressed Lee in the black dress after he had been killed, or whether he had put it on voluntarily. Based on forensic examination and the autopsy report, the police say the latter is correct. Nevertheless, some time after Kevin Lee arrived at 11 Rolleston Garth, Dennehy stabbed him five times in the chest. The wounds penetrated both his lungs and heart while the maniac alleged that she played Elvis songs and recorded everything on her mobile phone. Lee had put up the fight of his life for it later transpired that he was the only victim to suffer defensive wounds to his fingers and hands.

With two more dead bodies at two separate addresses now to dispose of, Dennehy and Stretch had to move fast, with several witnesses seeing them engaged in the hectic clean-up operations.

When Kevin failed to return home that evening, Cristina became concerned so she spoke to her family and made a few calls. She rang Kevin’s business partner, Paul Creed, also the partner of Kevin’s daughter, Chiara. Paul not heard from Kevin either, however two of Kevin’s friends decided to visit 11 Rolleston Garth, where they arrived at 8pm. As they entered the estate they spotted Kevin’s Mondeo leaving and noticed ‘something large in the rear of the vehicle’. This later transpired to be a mattress taken from 11 Rolleston Garth.

According to forensic evidence, police say that Kevin Lee’s dead body was taken away in the Vauxhall Astra – the corpse covered by a tarpaulin borrowed from Robert Moore, who, like Leslie Layton, incidentally had a crush on Joanne as well.

Kevin’s body was soon dumped in a ditch at Newborough. Then, at about 8.30pm that evening, the blue Ford Mondeo estate driven by Leslie Layton, and the green Vauxhall Astra driven by a very uncomfortable Stretch, with Dennehy in the front passenger seat, arrived simultaneously at a Shell petrol station on the outskirts of Peterborough. The forecourt CCTV recorded Layton exit the Mondeo to fill a can from one of the pumps. Moments later, he was approached by Stretch, wearing a dark sweater, khaki sleeveless jacket, beige cut-off-below-the-knee shorts and trainers. Layton, who had already cast a suspicious glance at the CCTV, gave Stretch money to pay for the petrol. Inside the garage, Stretch picked up a bottle of water and was filmed swigging it and muttering away to himself. The two cars were then driven off together.

The next sighting of the blue Mondeo came at 9.15pm. A farmer found it ablaze at an isolated spot where people dumped rubbish in Great Drove, a track close to the village of Yaxley. The Cambridgeshire Fire Service attended with one appliance and the flaming car and the mattress were recorded on video before being extinguished. The incident was reported to the police and the crew left the scene, returning to their station just before 10pm.

After torching Kevin’s car, the threesome returned to 38 Bifield, where Stretch and Layton carried John Chapman’s corpse down the stairs and placed it in the rear of the Vauxhall, causing the suspension to drop, as a neighbour recalled. From there they drove out to Thorney Dyke, where Lukasz Slaboszewski still lay undiscovered, and disposed of the body. Telephonic data confirms that that Good Friday night a very emotional Layton stayed with Gary Stretch at Riseholme while Dennehy slept at Robert Moore’s place, 78 Belvoir Way, which he shared with his fourteen-year-old daughter.

Despite not having any previous convictions Robert Moore was now up to his neck in it. The teenager had already seen the dead body of Lukasz Slaboszewski in the wheelie bin because Stretch and Dennehy had shown it to her. She had told Moore who, being under no illusion that murder had not occurred, had supplied the tarpaulin that he knew was to be used when disposing of the bodies of the three men. Moore had also been sending sexy text messages to Dennehy because the fool was besotted with her, and now he was giving two murderous fugitives food and shelter. One couldn’t make this up if one tried!

After the two friends of Kevin Lee had reported their concerns to Cristina, she contacted the police. At about 10.40pm an officer took down Kevin’s details, but for the time being he could only be categorised as a potentially missing person who might turn up alive and well at any time.

There is yet another tragic tailpiece to the death of Kevin Lee to consider. I do not know the state of Quicklet’s financial affairs prior to Joanne Dennehy’s arrival on the scene although one suspects a cash flow problem of sorts –why else would Lee have used the services of Dennehy and Stretch to evict tenants? Intimidation and threats of violence amount to blackmail, coercion and duress, which are all indictable offences. One might add conspiracy to defraud the taxpayer by abusing Housing Benefit payments and a large dose of false accounting into the bargain, of which Kevin Lee would have been well aware.

Nevertheless, what one can say in all certainty is that without Lee at the helm of the business he incorporated on Tuesday, 2 December 2003, Quicklet went down like the Titanic and destroyed his family into the bargain. He was officially removed as a director on Friday, 9 May 2014, and Cristina, the former company secretary, took over her late husband’s role – a paper exercise until the firm was liquidated.

During my research for this book I wrote to Quicklet, via the firm’s registered office. A Mr J. R. Arnott courteously replied on behalf of certified accountants Bulley Davey – Business Recovery and Insolvency Specialists:

‘In our capacity as Insolvency Practitioners we are acting on the instructions of Mrs Cristina Lee and have convened meetings of members and creditors of the company for the purposes of Creditors Voluntary Liquidation. The company is due to go into liquidation on 24th June 2104.’