Make it look like her car hit a deer
What TV producer ‘told the second hitman he asked to murder his wealthy partner’
A TV producer asked an ‘assassin’ to kill his partner and make it look like she died in her car after hitting a deer, a court heard yesterday.
David Harris allegedly took Duke Dean on a reconnaissance tour of villages and country lanes suggesting ideal spots for the ‘hit’.
But the 6ft 4in ‘ hitman’ became alarmed and went to the police when Harris, 68, asked him for chloroform or poison to carry out the murder.
Mr Dean said he feared Harris was so keen to have long-term girlfriend Hazel Allinson killed that he might take matters into his own hands.
He told the Old Bailey: ‘He asked me if there was a certain chloroform or poison, and if I had access to it. It was very scary because that’s when I realised he was really serious, and thought maybe he might do something beforehand.’
Harris, a location manager on ITV crime drama The Bill, is said to have wanted his partner’s money so he could lavish it on 28-year-old mistress Ugne Cekaviciute, who he met in a brothel
He allegedly approached three successive ‘assassins’. But the first tried to warn Miss Allinson, 68, and the second – Mr Dean – went to police, who used an undercover officer to record meetings with Harris.
Mr Dean told jurors that he played along after being approached by Harris last August and was offered £200,000 to carry out the ‘hit’.
Mr Dean, who was raised in the US, said Harris would pay him from the proceeds of Miss Allinson’s £900,000 house in Amberley, West Sussex. It was allegedly suggested that Mr Dean should crash into Miss Allinson’s Saab and kill her – but make it look like she died in an accident after hitting a deer. Mr Dean said that because he could not drive Harris suggested he would have to find an accomplice.
Miss Allinson, who also worked on The Bill as a script editor, watched from the public gallery as the court heard how Harris took Mr Dean on a scouting mission in the rural area where the couple lived.
He told the court: ‘ There was some windy country roads, we drove into a little village and stopped at a house she went to with friends, and a church she attends, we went to beautiful country areas. We discussed about how it could be done in the dark – maybe she ran over a deer...
‘The discussion was about the second driver, he was probably like giving her a bump, then maybe she stops, then you do the hit, put her back in the car and roll her down the hill or something, and make it look like she had been frightened by a wild animal or something.
‘One of the main ways of doing it he was discussing washer backto do in a her kidnapcar.’ Mr and Deanput said he first met pensioner Harris at a cafe in East London after pretending he wanted a debt collected.
He said Harris complained about Miss Allinson, saying she was going to leave him ‘skint’. In a later phone call which Mr Dean secretly recorded, Harris allegedly tried to hurry up the ‘ hit’, saying: ‘We’re running out of time and we want it done as soon as possible.’
He was arrested in November last year in bed with his mistress at a South London bed and breakfast. Harris claims the meetings with ‘hitmen’ was part of research for a novel and denies three charges of soliciting for murder. The trial continues.
‘I realised he was serious’