| The Dream Solution
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25/07/92
- I did not betray my wife
By JOHN TWOMEY
Daily Express
TWO-timing husband John Shaughnessy choked back tears last
night as he insisted: "I did not betray my lovely wife."
The former trainee priest had a two-year affair with workmate
Michelle Taylor, the woman sent down with her sister Lisa
for murdering young bride Alison.
But yesterday Mr Shaughnessy claimed his wife would have forgiven
him if she had found out about his relationship. "I don't
see I betrayed her. I was not chasing Michelle she pestered
me," he said.
"Alison would have forgiven me for having an affair,
I know that. She was not that kind of girl. She was my life.
We were devoted to each other. "I don't see why I should
feel guilty because I was having an affair. Lots of men nave
affairs but they don't end up with dead wives."
Irish-born Mr Shaughnessy, 30, vowed he would never marry
again. "Alison could never be replaced," he said.
"I am as guilty as those two bitches I made a mistake
by letting them into our lives, I would hang them myself.
They are totally evil."
He told how the night before Alison died the couple had talked
about having children. "After her death I spent hours
in the mortuary, holding her hand and stroking her hair. I
was asked to leave in the end. Her image is with me all the
time," he said.
Mr Shaughnessy has reserved the plot next to 21-year-old Alison's
for his burial place in an Irish graveyard. "My life
is finished now. I just wish Alison was still alive,"
he said. "I break down every day thinking about it."
And he told how he had felt as if he were on trial himself
when he was asked to give intimate details about his personal
life to the court. "I am not saying I am a saint, but
I am no womaniser either. I think I have had a rough ride,"
he said.
Mr Shaughnessy denies he made love to Michelle, 21, hours
before his wedding and that he tried to seduce her two weeks
after his wife's death. And he dismisses rumours of affairs
with other women during his marriage.
Natalie McGuinness, who lives in Ireland, and Kathy McKeown,
now in New York. After Alison's death Mr Shaughnessy lived
with her parents, Bob and Breda Blackmore in North London.
But the terrible revelation that he had cheated his wife with
the girl accused of killing her put a great strain on their
relationship.
"You just wonder if men know what they are doing when
they go off with someone else," said Mrs Blackmore. "But
John is part of the memories of Alison which we hold so dear.
They were inseparable."
Her husband added: "What's happened has happened. I have
no grievance against John." But one detective on the
case said Alison had deserved a much better husband. "I'm
sorry to have to say it, but John Shaughnessy is a horrible
man," he said.
Detectives were stunned when he asked them for her bus pass
back, so he could cash it in. And they were furious that he
failed to reveal his affair with Michelle until six weeks
after Alison's death. "John did not make as many, inquiries
as you would have expected. But he wasn't slow in asking for
Alison's bus pass, said the detective.
"It was amazing, but there was still some time on it,
and he wanted the money back. "He might not have killed
his wife. But he contributed to her death. If he had not started
the affair with Michelle Taylor, Alison would be still alive
today."
Mr Shaughnessy has received £18,000 from his wife's
pension, and will be paid £2,000 every year. He and
Michelle were colleagues at the private Churchill Clinic in
Kennington, South London. Their friendship first became an
affair in March 1989, and they used to make love in their
rooms in the clinic's residency.
On June 3 last year Michelle recruited her younger sister
Lisa, then 17, to carry out her "dream solution"
of making Alison disappear forever. The sisters waited for
Alison to get home from her job at Barclays Bank in the Strand.
As she walked up the stairs of her flat in Vardens Road, Battersea,
Michelle plunged a knife into her back. Afterwards the pair
jogged away, before Michelle drove them back to the clinic
in less than a quarter of an hour in time to help John with
the job of flower arranging there.
Later that evening she gave her lover, now purchasing manager
at the clinic, a lift home, where they discovered Alison's
body. Mr Shaughnessy had wept uncontrollably, and ice-cold
Michelle pretended to break down and cry before dashing to
a local pub for help.
Alison's father later described how he watched the sisters
during one of two memorial services for his daughter. "It
was an astonishing act they put on. I didn't like them being
there," said Mr Blackmore.
"I had my eye on Michelle throughout the service, which
was difficult, but I wanted to see how she would react."
At the earlier ser vice, Alison's mother recoiled when the
killer tried to shake her hand.
"I knew Alison didn't like Michelle and there was no
way I was going to like her," she said. After the funeral
in Ireland, Michelle spent the night in Mr Shaughnessy's hotel
room. After he returned to London, Mr Shaughnessy told police
about his affair, and detectives set about testing Michelle's
and Lisa's alibi.
Their friend Jeanette Tapp, 26, had told police the girls
were in her room at the clinic when Alison was murdered. But
after she was arrested for conspiracy to murder, Miss Tapp
broke down and changed her story.
The two sisters were arrested at their parents' home in Forest
Hill, South London, in August. Both denied anything to do
with Alison's murder. Michelle told police she had liked Mr
Shaughnessy's wife, and they got on well, But they found diaries
which told a different story. "I hate Alison unwashed
bitch," one entry read. |
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