26/07/92 - Alison Killer hated being love rat's tart
By GARY JONES and MARK CHRISTY
New of the World

MURDERING mistress Michelle Taylor has told how she came to hate her lover John Shaughnessy because he treated her like a tart. Michelle, 21, who got a life sentence this week for killing John's wife Alison, said she was just a "bit on the side".

She told of her anger and confusion in a letter to a pal written during her 15-day trial at the Old Bailey. When John, 30, was told of the letter he smiled and said: "Michelle may well have hated me. She proved it by murdering Alison. "Maybe she feels she got her revenge."

Detective Superintendent Chris Burke said: "We were told by Michelle's friends that she hated the way John treated her. He treated her like a tart. "The fact that John Shaughnessy continued seeing Michelle after his wife died shows the kind of man that he is. "He never really cared for Michelle and that must have really riled her.

She was just his bit on the side." In the letter, Michelle wrote in her neat and precise handwriting: "One thing I must stress is that I do not love John. I used to, but my feelings towards him changed a long time ago. Actually it was back in 1990, I started seeing him as the person he really was.

"It was hard for me to get out of the affair because of working at the same place. So in March of 1991 I left my job so I could get away and start a new." It was Michelle's secret diaries which gave detectives clues about her twisted mind.

In one extract she wrote: "I hate Alison the unwashed bitch."My dream solution would be for Alison to disappear as if she never existed and then maybe I could give everything to the man I loved." Michelle told her pal in the letter: "I could write down what I think of him but I won't. "I did that before in my diary and then myself and my sister get arrested."

She added: "My diary did state I hated Alison but as the months passed my opinion on Alison changed and I realised it was him that I hated." Michelle and her sister Lisa, 19, were found guilty of murdering Alison, who was stabbed 54 times outside her flat in Battersea, South London.

Before the verdict was returned, the girls' family planned a champagne celebration at their home in Forest Hill. But in Michelle's letter, she told of her doubts over the verdict. She wrote: "I know this nightmare will end soon but i do not know what the outcome will be.

"I can only pray that we are found not guilty, but who can say what the judge and jury will decide." Alison's parents Bobbie and Breda Blackmore have refused to condemn John even after police told them he had at least three other lovers. Bobbie said: ''I have my own private thoughts about John."

But Alison's brother Robert, a clerk at the NatWest bank, said his parents secretly blame John for Alison's death. Speaking at the family's north London flat, he said: "They believe Alison would still be alive if she hadn't married him."

Detectives refused to speak to John during the trial. One senior officer said: "He is a bastard, full point. That's what we think of him. "He didn't help our investigation, but hindered it. He didn't tell us about Michelle for several weeks. "He disappeared as soon as Alison was murdered."