Tracie `wanted marriage not murder'

Tracie Andrews, accused of hacking her fiance to death after a row, wanted marriage, not murder, a court was told yesterday. Ronald Thwaites QC, for the defence, also told Birmingham Crown Court, that Ms Andrews, 28, had been unfairly vilified by the media.

"Tracie Andrews did not have a motive for murder - she had a motive for marriage. This is the man she had fixed upon and he upon her to spend the rest of her life with. They had found glamour with each other, charm with each other; they wanted each other."

Mr Thwaites said Lee Harvey had worn his engagement ring the night he was killed, and Ms Andrews was still wearing it now as she sat in the dock on trial for his murder, which she denies. The court was told it would be extraordinary for a young woman to spend an evening in the pub with her lover and for it to end in such an "horrendous bloodbath in the road".

Mr Thwaites, presenting the case for the defence, said his client had been effectively "written off" after vindictive newspaper reports of her arrest and trial for the alleged roadside murder of Mr Harvey. He said coverage of the case and representations of Ms Andrews in the media were among the worst examples of "lynch-mob journalism" he had seen. Mr Thwaites said Ms Andrews had been "vilified in the press" and labelled a wicked person, effectively convicting her before a word of her defence had been heard. "She doesn't claim celebrity for herself; she doesn't seek it. She is a young woman, a single mother, in common with thousands of others."

Ms Andrews, of the Becks, Alvechurch, Worcestershire, denies murdering Mr Harvey, who lived with her, on 1 December.

She says Mr Harvey was stabbed by a passenger in a blue Ford Sierra, and that she was punched in the face, after a road-rage incident at Coopers Hill, Alvechurch.

Mr Thwaites said the prosecution had put forward a case which was "painful in its simplicity", that on the night of the murder a fierce and violent argument had started in the couple's car and had ended with Miss Andrews stabbing her fiance more than 30 times until her anger had subsided.

He added: "... the prosecution say that this defendant, Miss Tracie Andrews, had a motive for murder. She says no - she had a motive for marriage." The senior police officer investigating the death of Harvey admitted that a witness said she heard a car racing away from the murder scene at around the time he was stabbed, a court heard yesterday.

But Detective Superintendent Ian Johnston said other witnesses contradicted the woman's account that she heard the high-pitched screeching of a car some time after 10.40pm on the night Mr Harvey was allegedly stabbed to death by Ms Andrews, a former model.

The case continues.