Maureen Harvey - Pure Evil. How Tracie Andrews Murdered My Son, Decieved the Nation and Sentenced Me to a...

I t was 3.20am on Sunday, 1 December 1996. The sound of a car pulling up outside had woken Ray and me. Who else would turn up in the middle of the night but Lee?

I lay awake in the darkness wondering why I couldnt hear him letting himself in downstairs. Typical, I thought, getting out of bed. Hes probably forgotten his front-door key. But, when I pulled back the curtains and saw a white car parked at the end of our drive, I realised it wasnt Lees. I was horrified when I saw two uniformed police officers get out of the car and make their way up the garden path.

I can remember shouting, No! as they were knocking on the front door and, in that split-second, as Ray leaped out of bed and nearly fell over as he tried to put both legs in one trouser hole, a thousand thoughts raced through my mind. Had Lee been in an accident? Was he hurt? Was it Michelle, my daughter? She was pregnant and on a Center Parcs holiday with her husband Steve and two-year-old daughter Paige. What in Gods name had happened?

Even as Ray and I were running down the stairs, I was silently praying, Please, God, let everything be all right. Let them have the wrong address.

Facing a policeman and woman on the doorstep, I gripped Rays arm. Are you the parents of Lee Harvey? one of them asked.

The blood was pounding in my head as Ray nodded and stepped back to let them into the hallway.

Im afraid hes been in some sort of row, the officer continued. A road-rage attack. Hes been stabbed.

I could hardly breathe. Is he all right? I asked.

His face said it all. Were very sorry, Mrs Harvey

Oh, God! I screamed. Please dont tell me hes dead.

Ray was crying as the officers followed us into the sitting room. The policewoman put her arm round me and said shed make us a cup of tea. I went into the kitchen and started getting cups out of the cupboard. I was in such a state of shock that I couldnt find anything else. I stood shaking by the sink and let the policewoman gently take a cup from my hands.

This couldnt be happening to us. It happened on the television to other people. Id read harrowing interviews in the newspapers and magazines where other parents had relived this nightmare. It was too much to take in that now it was our turn and that our son was dead.

It cant be Lee, Ray said. His voice was choked, barely audible.

No, I heard myself say. Youve made a mistake Its not him It cant be.

Im afraid it is Lee, the first policeman began.

What about Tracie? I interrupted him. My mind was racing. Lee stabbed? Murdered? A road-rage attack?

Was she with him? I asked. Is she hurt?

Shes been taken to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, he said, watching Ray pace up and down the room. Shes in shock and has some bruising from where she was attacked, but shes all right. Well be talking to her later.

What do you mean, Shes all right? Ray demanded. Why didnt she phone us? If she was with Lee when someone killed him, shes a witness. Why would anyone leave a witness to identify them?

Even when youre facing the kind of shock that feels like a sledgehammer punch in the chest, like someone is squeezing the breath out of you, you still, somehow, focus on trying to make sense of the unthinkable.

Tracie Andrews wed lost count of the times our son had driven or caught a taxi back home in the early hours after yet another row with Tracie. The arguments between them were the only predictable thing about their on-off relationship.

Usually, after one or both of them had downed one too many drinks, Tracie would end up either phoning her mum or the police to say she wanted Lee out of her flat for good. Shed claim he was throwing things at her, threatening her, taunting her. Like us, the police knew it was a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other and would log the call as another domestic. Theyd turn up, Tracie would turn on the waterworks and play the victim, and Lee would pick up his jacket and leave. Hed get home covered in scratches and bruises, while Tracie would be crying on her mums shoulder, blaming Lee for causing yet another bust-up.

A couple of days later, the phone would ring and Lee would listen to her in floods of tears begging him to come back and off hed go. That was just the way things were between them. Tracie seemed to thrive on the drama and Lee was so besotted with her that, for most of the two years theyd been together, he wouldnt have a bad word said against her. Just so long as they ended up in bed together once theyd kissed and made up, he went along with it.

Ray and I had given up trying to convince him that theyd never be happy together, even though they were engaged and planning their wedding. Arrogant and self-obsessed , Tracie had been bad news from the day wed met her. Wed both recognised a controlling young woman whose bleached blonde hair and caked-on make-up masked a deep insecurity and manipulative personality. She was the kind of good-time girl who ruthlessly traded on her sexuality to seek the attention she craved.

Lee, a good-looking lad, whod bedded more women than hed had hot dinners, saw what every other red-blooded male would have seen another trophy girlfriend who wouldnt take much persuading to get into bed.

Hes not in love, Ray had said to me when Lee brought Tracie home for Sunday lunch a week after theyd met in Bakers nightclub in Birmingham. Hes in lust.

That had been back in May 1994. Wed all hoped wed see the back of her within a few weeks and that Lee would see through her. But sex was always Tracies trump card and, within just six months of meeting Lee, she had a diamond engagement ring on her finger and was planning a full-on white wedding to prove it.

Were meant to be together, shed announced on the day Lee brought her home to meet us. Its our destiny.

Lee could have had his pick of any girl who caught his eye. But Tracie was different, hed told me. Its the best sex Ive ever had, Mum, hed joked.

There was nothing he and I didnt talk about and I was used to hearing him describe how hed often get home from work and find her waiting for him in stockings and suspenders, ready to drag him upstairs. Lee had even told Michelle, his sister, that he thought hed tried most things in bed until he met Tracie.

But even knowing how besotted Lee was with her wasnt enough for Tracie. From the moment theyd met, shed tried every trick in the book to drive a wedge between him and us. She carried a deep-rooted insecurity that made her cynical and paranoid. Everyone, or so she thought, was trying to take Lee away from her. Tracie was especially jealous of his relationship with his five-year-old daughter Danielles mum Anita Curtis and the fact that Lee was so close to his sister.

It was far from ideal, and particularly heart-breaking for me because we were so close and I couldnt bear to see him so unhappy when hed turn up at home after yet another argument. You never stop worrying about your kids or wanting to protect them, no matter what age they are, but as adults they have to lead their own lives, and learn from their own mistakes. Its hard to sit on the sidelines and watch, but its part and parcel of being a parent. If you get too involved, it can make things worse. Once youve said your piece, you just have to let them get on with it.