8th-April-2008
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 | Men's rights activist | | | |
Woman took out £4,500 home improvement loan to pay for a hitman to kill husband | |
Quote:
A woman took out a £4,500 home improvement loan to pay for a hitman to kill her husband.
Zoe Kenealy was given the cash by a finance firm after claiming she wanted to install a new bathroom.
In fact, she had recruited her lover Lee Waite - who lived next door - to arrange her husband Timothy's murder for £10,000.
But her attempts to raise the full sum foundered when she was turned down for loans by two other firms - Northern Rock and Tesco Personal Finance.
Kenealy, a 44-year-old care worker, complained that her husband "smothered her in love" and wanted him dead so she could claim his life insurance policy worth almost £34,000.
She asked Waite, who claimed to be a gangster with underworld contacts, to arrange a professional assassin. In reality, he was a fraudster and fantasist who pocketed the £3,000 she gave him as a down payment.
Kenealy, of Kenley, Croydon, South London, was later arrested after trying to borrow cash from her family to fund the plot and yesterday she was convicted of soliciting to murder, which carries a maximum life sentence.
But Mr Kenealy, 42, is standing by his wife - who he still believes is innocent. He went to court with her every day along with her two sons from a previous marriage, and wept when the Old Bailey jury delivered the verdict.
The couple began having problems after his mother died and he became obsessed with his wife.
In August 2006, Kenealy started a relationship with 31-year-old Waite, who lived next door with his pregnant wife Marie. They exchanged sexually-explicit text messages and met for drinks in a local pub.
But a few weeks into the relationship, Kenealy asked Waite if he could arrange to have her husband killed. He told the jury: "I was quite shocked. She asked if I knew anyone that could get rid of somebody.
"Zoe said I looked like a bit of a rogue and the sort of person who would know someone like that. I told her I could try to sort it out. I tried to convince her that I could do it. She asked me how much it would cost and I just bounced a figure off my head, I said £10,000.
"Zoe said she hadn't got that kind of money, but she said she could get about three or four thousand. I didn't ask her where from."
To help guide the hitman, Kenealy wrote down details of her husband's job at Alpha Catering at Gatwick Airport and listed the bookmakers he visited.
She described him as "6ft with an ugly big nose". Kenealy was given a £4,500 loan by Welcome Financial Services after telling the firm she wanted the money to get a new bathroom.
After failing to get further loans, she contacted her brother, Richard Wharton, asking for money, saying: "I want to have Tim done over. I hate him."
Over the following days Kenealy desperately texted her brother, writing: "They need to know if I have the rest of the money, otherwise they won't go through with it."
Realising his sister was serious, Mr Wharton told other family members, who went to the police and Kenealy was arrested last January.
Waite escaped with a caution after agreeing to testify against Kenealy.
During the trial, Kenealy said she only wanted her husband "out of the way" and plotted to hire a hitman to frighten him into moving out. She said: "Tim loved me too much. He smothered me."
Judge Gregory Stone QC remanded her in custody and warned her she faces prison when sentenced next month.
| Woman took out £4,500 home improvement loan to pay for a hitman to kill husband |
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