| The Dream Solution
- Articles |
08/07/92
- Lover wanted to share my bed 2 weeks after funeral
By Peter Rose
JEALOUS mistress Michelle Taylor waited just weeks after murdering
her lover's wife before trying to resume their affair, the Old
Bailey heard yesterday. A fortnight after the funeral of bank
clerk Alison Shaughnessy, 21, she talked him into letting her
share his hotel bedroom.
John Shaughnessy wept as he told the jury that they were in Ireland
for his brother's wedding, and Taylor claimed she had no accommodation.
'I agreed on one condition — that she stayed in the room
and that was it,' he said. 'She attempted to resume our old relationship
but I was not willing.'
The prosecution claims Taylor, 21, was so jealous that she stabbed
her rival to death, helped by her 18-year-old sister Lisa. Mrs
Shaughnessy was ambushed when she arrived home from work at Barclays
in the Strand, and stabbed 54 times.
Hours after the murder in June last year Michelle Taylor drove
Mr Shaughnessy home, and was with him when he discovered the body,
the court heard. Irish-born Mr Shaughnessy, 30, told the court
that Taylor had phoned him earlier to say she would be late for
a flowerarranging session at the South London clinic where they
both worked. She had been 'quieter than normal', he said.
When they arrived at his flat in Vardens Road, Battersea, he was
carrying a bouquet for his wife, he said. They went in together.
'Alison was just lying there.' He ran for help. 'Michelle just
started crying.' Mrs Shaughnessy's parents, Bob and Breda Blackmore,
listened from the public gallery as their son-in-law recalled
how the affair had begun about a year before his marriage.
He said he and Taylor would have sex about twice a month at the
clinic where he was an assistant purchasing manager and she was
a cleaner. Often this would be after he did the flower arranging
on a Monday night. She became angry when he wanted to end the
affair, he said. 'I made it clear I wanted to be just good friends.
'She agreed at first but she always came back again, being a bit
forward, things like that. 'I just looked upon her as a friend.
I didn't have any stronger feelings than that. Alison, I loved.'
Taylor was outwardly friendly to his wife, the jury heard, and
even arranged and paid for his stag party. She was at their wedding
at Piltown, County Kilkenny, in June 1990. 'Alison and I paid
because she had been doing a let of favours for us and we thought
we'd treat her to that,' said Mr Shaughnessy.
After the wedding, his relationship with his wife was getting
'better all the time', he went on. 'Alison appeared to be happy.
We did occasionally row, but we always made up.' But the affair
had begun again just after the wedding, he admitted. 'Michelle
used to hang about a lot.
At first I thought everything was OK, but then it seemed to go
back to what it was before.' Mr Shaughnessy said he and his wife
moved to a new flat in January last year and he had intended ending
the flower-arranging sessions.
'My thoughts were that things would dwindle down to just the friendship
I wanted,' he told the jury. Cross-examined by Michelle Taylor's
lawyer, Richard Ferguson QC, he admitted telling the police: 'I
do not know how I got involved with Michelle. It was just a situation
I got into.' Mr Ferguson asked him: 'Can you remember one night
telling Michelle you loved her?' 'I may have,' he replied. 'I
didn't love her and that's it.'
He agreed that it was weeks after his wife's death when he finally
owned up to police about the relationship. He admitted that he
had never told Taylor the affair was over but claimed: 'I understood
she may have been able to find her own boyfriend and that would
be it.
I wasn't content and we had a few rows over it.' Mr Ferguson said:
'You were eight years older, you were married, you could have
walked away?' Mr Shaughnessy replied: 'Obviously, that was my
weakness.' The sisters, of Kemble Road, Forest Hill, South East
London, deny murder.
The case continues. |
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