TV boss gets 17 years over hitman plot to kill partner
A FORMER producer of TV drama The Bill who plotted to have his partner killed so he could inherit her wealth and set up home with a prostitute 40 years his junior was jailed for 17 years yesterday.
Ruthless David Harris, 68, showed no emotion as he was sentenced for trying to hire three separate hitmen to murder Hazel Allinson.
Harris wanted Ms Allinson – also a former Bill producer – dead so he could inherit her £800,000 cottage and start a new life with Lithuanian prostitute Ugne Cekaviciute, 28.
Judge Anne Molyneux told him his 69-year-old partner only survived because luckily he failed to find an assassin willing to carry out the £200,000 hit.
“The fact that Ms Allinson didn’t die is not due to a lack of preparation or intention to withdraw on your part but to the unwillingness of those requested to kill Ms Allinson to do so,” the judge told Harris.
“For your pipe dream, for your obsessive infatuation with a young woman, Ms Allinson, who had protected and nurtured you, was to die a painful and terrifying death in an isolated spot.
“Her death was to fund your life. You had used her until she had outlasted her usefulness to you. All that you wanted from her was that she should die and you should inherit her money.”
The court heard Ms Allinson may be standing by the defendant.
Anthony Rimmer, mitigating, said Ms Cekaviciute was now “out of the picture” and his relationship with Ms Allinson was an “open question”.
An Old Bailey jury heard Harris met the 6ft 1in former basketball player in a brothel six years ago.
He became obsessed, showering her with gifts and money and decided Ms Allinson – who produced hit shows such as Doctor Who and the original 1970s Poldark series – was in the way. The jury heard he blew £50,000 of her savings and used her reputation as a parish councillor and chorister to borrow thousands more from neighbours in Amberley, West Sussex.
Harris also sneaked his lover into their cottage home and photographed her posing naked on a bed with his partner’s three spaniels.
He claimed he was researching a murder mystery novel but the jury dismissed his story, finding him guilty of three charges of soliciting murder.
Psychiatric reports showed he exhibited “social anxiety and a narcissistic personality disorder”.