Marcel Allan, 42, murdered Lisa Leckenby (From The Northern Echo)

Marcel Allan, 42, murdered Lisa Leckenby

8:28am Tuesday 24th November 2009 in

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A KILLER boasted that he ate a kebab as he watched his partner bleed to death after beating her and stabbing her five times, a court was told yesterday.

Marcel Allan, 42, repeatedly plunged a kitchen knife into the back of mother-of-three Lisa Leckenby, before stamping on her head and watching her die as he ate the takeaway.

The murder of the 28-year-old was the latest in a long line of tragedies to befall her family – including the fatal stabbings of her father and uncle.

Newcastle Crown Court heard yesterday that, after the killing, Allan left Miss Leckenby’s body at the home they shared in Tenth Street, Blackhall, County Durham.

He went to his ex-girlfriend Patricia Douglas and told her: “I’ve stabbed her and I watched her take her last breath as I sat eating a kebab with chilli sauce.

“It was red and I said ‘This is your blood bitch’.”

Allan showed Miss Douglas a picture of two of Miss Leckenby’s children on a key ring, and sneered: “Oh too bad that you haven’t got a mother now.”

The following day, Allan – pretending to be someone else – called police to tell them that Miss Leckenby’s body was at their home.

Allan, who appeared in court dressed in a football strip, smirked as Mark Guilini, prosecuting, outlined the case.

Mr Guilini told the court the couple had a turbulent relationship underscored by the excessive consumption of alcohol.

On the day of the killing, August 8, they had been out drinking in Blackhall.

He said: “They were ejected from a bar at 5.30pm, because it was considered Miss Leckenby had been drinking too much. By 7pm that day she was dead.”

A post-mortem examination showed Miss Leckenby had lacerations and bruises to her face and had been stabbed five times in the back.

Mr Guilini said: “The injuries were consistent with them being delivered in a single flurry from behind while she was lying face down on the floor.”

One of the wounds, which would have taken “considerable force” to inflict, had almost passed right through her body.

Mr Guilini said, although the knife had penetrated several organs, including her heart, it was possible she lived for some minutes after the blows.

After the killing, Allan telephoned friend Patricia Swayze and told her: “I have killed Lisa.”

When she saw him later, she said he “didn’t look bothered – he showed no remorse whatsoever”.

Because of that, Ms Swayze did not believe him.

When Allan arrived at Ms Douglas’ home, where he made his boast of eating his takeaway, he was covered in blood and started cleaning his trainers in her living room.

He pointed to a scratch on his nose, saying Miss Leckenby had done it, and added: “The bitch shouldn’t have and I wouldn’t have done what I did.”

Allan said he had taken £150 of Miss Leckenby’s cash and was going to deposit in at the bank.

He said: “The bitch doesn’t need it. She’s dead now.”

Allan even texted Miss Leckenby’s mother, Dorothy, under another name, saying: “Sorry about your daughter.”

He then contacted friend Henry Simpson and asked him to help dispose of the body by putting it a wheelie bin and setting it alight. Mr Simpson refused to help.

At the time of the murder, Allan was serving a fourmonth prison sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting common assault against Miss Leckenby.

In an impact statement, Miss Leckenby’s mother said: “Her death has left a huge hole in my and my family’s life. She was a lovely, thoughtful person, who will be greatly missed by all.”

Robert Woodcock, for Allan, said their stormy relationship had been peppered with calls to police and characterised by increasingly heavy drinking.

He said, on the day of her death, Miss Leckenby had been in touch with an exboyfriend to arrange a liaison.

Mr Woodcock said Allan had no clear recollection of the events. He added: “His early plea of guilty [to the murder] does demonstrate a considerable degree of remorse.”

Judge Esmond Faulks jailed Allan for life and told him he would spend at least 15 years in prison before being considered for parole.

He said: “You subjected Lisa Leckenby to a violent assault. You punched her in the face and you stabbed her in the back five times. One of those blows required considerable force to inflict. You admitted after stabbing her you stamped on her face and let her bleed to death on the floor in your house.

“When you spoke to witnesses about what you had done, you showed no remorse whatsoever and even boasted about the killing, saying it served her right.”

He added: “This was a horrible and unforgivable killing with aggravating features.

The only mitigating feature is your guilty plea.”

Brutal end to a life riddled with tragedy

As Marcel Allan was beginning a jail sentence for the murder of his partner, Lisa Leckenby, details emerged of a mother-of-three whose life was blighted by scandal and sadness. Gavin Engelbrecht reports.

WHEN Lisa Leckenby was brutally slain in a frenzied knife attack it marked yet another dark chapter for a family haunted by a series of tragedies.

Her uncle – and one-time lover – had been killed at the hands of her father, who in turn was later murdered by her own brother.

The troubled saga unfolded after Lisa started an incestuous relationship with her uncle, Christopher, moving into his home when she was 17-years-old.

Her father, Ronald, accepted the relationship between his daughter and his younger brother and regularly invited him to his home in Downhill, Sunderland, for drinking and darts sessions.

On April 1 2000, Christopher, Lisa, Ronald and his wife, Dorothy, were having one of their regular drinking sessions.

Newcastle Crown Court was later told that, after a consuming a large amount of alcohol, the happy atmosphere turned to violence and escalated into a brawl, during which Christopher struck Dorothy.

During the ensuing fight Lisa was struck by her father and Christopher pushed him away, causing him to fall over the coffee table.

At this point Ronald went to get the biggest knife in the kitchen. No one saw the fatal blow being struck, but Christopher, 28, died from massive loss of blood when he was stabbed in the back.

The wound was the size of a tennis ball – the worst knife injury the attending paramedic had seen.

Ronald was jailed for fourand- a-half years after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.

He was released from jail in 2003 – only to be stabbed by his 18-year-old son, Shaun, during a sustained attack at the home they shared in Castletown, Sunderland, on January 14, 2006.

At Shaun’s trial, at Newcastle Crown Court, a jury was told when police arrived at the blood-soaked scene he was calmly smoking a cigarette next to his father’s corpse.

Shaun was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and “Freddy Kruger-style” trilby.

“That’s the knife, that’s the knife I killed my father with,”

he told officers, when he was asked about a large bloodstained knife embedded in a cushion on the settee.

Shaun had plunged the knife into his father 14 times – two wounds pierced his heart. It was claimed that in calls made to his mother and sister after the killing, Shaun had said his father had stabbed him first.

After his arrest, he was treated for a knife wound to his thigh. After a trial lasting four days in May 2006, Shaun was found guilty of murder by a jury.

The judge accepted there was no premeditation and Shaun had been subjected to a “high degree of provocation”.

He passed a 15-year sentence of life imprisonment making him eligible for parole after eight years.