Psychopath was freed to kill again

Haywood, 37, used a machete to kill 26-year-old friend Karena Bigg-Wither at her home near Fleet, Hampshire, in 1984.

Her mutilated body was found hidden under bushes at her parents' six-bedroom home.

The news he had previously been jailed for murder stunned the jury at the Old Bailey yesterday after they had found Haywood guilty of the attempted murder and rape of a teenager on Ditchling Common.

Both cases were marked by extreme and brutal violence which will now see Haywood behind bars for the rest of his natural life.

Back in 1984, police believed Karena, who lived in an annexe of her wealthy family's home, had taken pity on the 19-year-old Haywood, who had just been released from Borstal for a series of crimes of dishonesty.

A friend said at the time: "She was always sorry for misfits and showed them remarkable sympathy. She attracted insecure people. They came to her like magnets."

Karena had let Haywood sleep on the floor in her flat but discovered him trying to steal jewellery and valuables.

An argument broke out which ended in a violent assault.

Haywood told police: "I tried to strangle her but she managed to get away into the garden.

"She was screaming, so I chased her round the side of the house. I caught her by the arm. There was a machete by the side of the lawnmower, so I hit her across the neck with the blunt side of it."

David Owen-Thomas QC, prosecuting, told Winchester Crown Court: "Noting that she was badly injured, he thought, 'What would one do with an injured bird? Put it out of its agony?'. So he finished her off.

"Her body had been horribly and brutally mutilated."

Karena's parents, Richard and Priscilla, returned from Paris that evening but it was not until the next morning her body was found under a bush in the back garden.

Immediately after the attack, Haywood went to a hotel with a married girlfriend whom he had made pregnant on day release from Borstal.

Haywood, who grew up in the Aldershot area of Hampshire, admitted killing Karena and was sentenced to life in 1984.

His mother, Jacqueline McArthur, was forced to give up her job as a radio operator for a taxi firm after the killing.

At the time she said: "I think I know how the Bigg-Wither family feel. I know how I would feel if it was my daughter. But Ian is my son so I have a loyalty to him."

She visited Haywood in prison every week from her home in Farnborough, saying: "He is a completely different person."

Haywood was the eldest of three boys raised by their mother in a Farnborough council house after she split from her husband when Ian was five.

He drifted into petty crime at the age of 15 and, during the next two years, spent time in Borstal and at a detention centre for taking cars without consent.

At the time of the murder he was living with a girlfriend.

His pattern of womanising continued after his marriage in prison to his second wife, Ann.

Mrs Haywood, who was a voluntary prison visitor and counsellor, met the killer behind bars in 1992 and fell in love with him.

They were married in 1994 and he was subsequently granted day release passes. The couple went on to have four children.

He was released in 1998 on licence and the family set up home near Burgess Hill.

They soon fell into financial difficulties after Haywood was made redundant from his job as a lorry driver.

He also fell into his old ways with a mistress in Hove, whom he visited at weekends.

Mrs Haywood knew he was serving life for murder but did not discover the details until two years ago.

She was shocked to discover his story that he had killed his abusive stepfather was a lie.

Detective Sergeant Chris Standard, one of a team of officers who investigated the attack at the isolated Ditchling Common, near Burgess Hill, said: "I am puzzled he was deemed fit for release.

"I am puzzled how the parole board arrived at a decision that he was a person who was fit and safe to release into the community when he later commits this horrendous attack on two young people he does not know.

"He is clearly a very dangerous man. There would have to be some serious psychotic tendencies."

To avoid prejudice at the trial, members of the jury were not told Harwood had already committed murder.

Karena's sister, who sat through the trial this week, had hoped to have an influence on his release from prison and supervision.

Alexandra Johnston, 56, from London, said: "It was as if her murder had not happened. The whole trial has been heard without mention of her sister.

"I understand that the judge made a pragmatic decision not to allow the jury to hear about his past.

"My feeling is that the system which allows this to happen is wrong and needs to be looked at."

Their other sister, 55-year-old Joanna Moore-Smith - who enjoyed fame in the Seventies and Eighties for her role in soap opera The Young Doctors - is still living in Australia and was kept informed of the proceedings.

Mrs Johnston said: "Karena's murder totally devastated our family. Both our parents are now dead and I don't feel they ever recovered from the horror of it. We all carry the memory of it every day.

"We coped as best we could as a family but it almost destroyed us."

Before he died, her father, a leather trader, asked his daughter to stay informed about when Karena's killer would be released.

Mrs Johnston said: "I was telephoned one evening and told his release was imminent. I was assured I could have some involvement in the final report of when he was released.

"I wanted to talk about my feelings on behalf of our family and how it had affected us. I just wanted to be involved in the final decision made about him. I had no reply at all.

"All the reports suggested he had seen the error of his ways and was a changed man. I was informed he had undergone some anger management but clearly it didn't help."

In the trial just ended, Haywood denied attempted murder, attempted rape, false imprisonment and two offences of attempted robbery.

His smart appearance during the trial was in stark contrast to the night of January 18.

Powerfully-built and wearing a mask, he confronted the terrified teenage couple.

They were sitting in their car in a car park near Folders Lane, Ditchling Common, a popular meeting place for young people.

Like Karena's sister, they were in court each day of the trial and sat next to each other in the public gallery.

On the night of the attack, Haywood appeared suddenly out of the darkness to demand money and brandished a gun and a knife at the couple, a 17-year-old girl and her 19-year-old boyfriend.

He fired the gun in the air before hitting the boyfriend over the head with the butt and locking him in the boot of his car. When the girl told Haywood she had no money, he ordered her to strip.

She resisted what she thought was a rape attack and was stabbed 35 times in the face, hands and neck.

She needed 143 stitches for her injuries, which were described by one doctor as the worst he had ever seen.

She said: "I curled up into a ball. He leant forward and I felt the first stab. He did it another two times and then I went numb. He just kept going and going."

She has scars on her face and hands. One of her fingers was almost severed. She had two operations and is due to have another.

Despite being badly injured, she kicked him in the groin with such force he reeled backwards and fell over. Then she played dead and he ran off.

At the same time, her boyfriend managed to free himself through the rear seat of the car.

Police said the couple had been waiting for the trial to end before they felt they could move forward with their lives.

There would always be scars, both mental and physical, but they both had strong personalities.

Mr Standard said: "Her kicking him in the groin basically stopped the attack. She had the strength of mind to do that.

"He fell over and dropped the knife. The blade broke off, leaving him holding the handle."

Mr Standard, who was one of ten detectives working on Operation Angler set up to catch the attacker, said: "To this day, we have never really established what was going on in his head.

"It was an irrational and very, very frightening attack with no real motive.

"This young couple were complete strangers to him. It was such a motiveless and horrific assault that we did not know what he was capable of doing."

Soon after Haywood made his getaway, three friends arrived at the car park and they drove the couple to hospital.

Haywood returned home where he confessed to his wife, Ann, who rang the police the following day.

He walked into Brighton police station after seeing a television news bulletin naming him in connection with the attack.

But in court Haywood claimed his wife had mental health problems and had tried to frame him.

The couple lived with their children in Willow Way, Hurstpierpoint, where, according to police, they kept a low profile.

Mrs Haywood, 37, still lives in the road with the youngsters, aged five, four and two-year-old twins.

She told the court Haywood went out the night of the attack after saying he was going to con his way into a house in Ditchling by posing as a Jehovah's Witness and then rob the occupants.

When he returned with a bloodstained knife handle she was frightened and knew something awful had happened.

He told her: "I have done a couple on Ditchling Common."

During the trial she denied suggestions by John Perry QC, defending, that she had friends in the criminal underworld who had set Haywood up.

Mrs Haywood told the jury she suffered from a multiple personality disorder until 1996.

But Haywood, who described his wife as a good mother, told the court she still had the condition.