Convicted killer accused of raping young mother and setting her on fire tells court he and victim were lovers

Stephen Unwin and William John McFall - who met while they shared a prison cell - subjected Quyen Ngoc Nguyen to a five-hour ordeal before setting her ablaze in her Audi A4 car when she was still alive, it is alleged.

The pair had both served life sentences for murdering vulnerable elderly people in their homes during robberies, but met up again after being released on licence.

They carried out a degrading attack on Miss Nguyen, 28, using a gas-powered pistol and a Star Wars lightsaber toy belonging to her young son, Newcastle Crown Court has heard.

Unwin, 40, and McFall, who is 51 and known as John, blame each other for the attacks, each claiming the other was responsible for Miss Nguyen's rape and murder last August.

At the beginning of the defence case, Unwin said he played no part in killing or raping the victim, who he knew only as Anna.

He told the court how he and Anna met last May when he began acting as a workman on properties she was renting out.

He said: "We started meeting for coffee and would talk about business but that progressed onto other things.

"She would talk about her ex-partner and how they were having issues and that she found English men much more polite.

"The she invited me for lunch so that she could cook for me. She said she wanted to make me a traditional Asian meal. It was around that point that she started coming to my home. We just clicked.

"At around the end of July last year the relationship became physical. That would happen sometimes when she visited me at the properties I was working on and sometimes at my home."

He said after serving his prison sentence for the murder of an elderly man in home in Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, in 1998, he was a changed man.

Unwin told the court: "That was when I was very young, I made a lot of bad choices and I was naive. I am a different man now, I have turned my life around in the last few years. Ultimately I have paid the price for the bad choices that I made."

On his release in 2012, he started to use the skills he learnt in prison to set himself up as a handyman and claimed he had secured £20,000 worth of new work.

It meant that he was sub contracting some of it out and it brought him back into contact with his former cellmate, also a handyman. Unwin said: "I gave John a call and brought him on board."

Jurors have been told the men met while serving their life sentences at the prison on the HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent.

The murderers wrote to each other when they were sent to separate prisons until they ended up at the same jail in East Yorkshire, while they were being prepared for release.

During interviews after the pair were arrested over the killing of Miss Nguyen, both men denied any involvement in her murder.

McFall told them, in a prepared statement: "I have a previous conviction for murder.

"I was released on life licence on 10 December 2010, having served 14 years and seven months of a sentence for murder. I pleaded guilty to that offence and had no trial.

"I met Stephen Unwin around 2002 in HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

"He was serving a life sentence for murder. I again met him in prison in East Yorkshire, when we were both heading for release.

"We lost touch in about 2010 but got back in touch in 2014/15."

McFall told detectives that Unwin, who ran his own property maintenance firm after his release, would hire him to do painting and decorating work at a rate of around £50 per day.

The killer told police he loved the girlfriend he was seeing at the time and added: "Prison has obviously changed me a hell of a lot, for the better."

He added in his statement: "I have absolutely no knowledge of this offence or any involvement."

McFall murdered 86-year-old Martha Gilmore in her home in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, bludgeoning her with a hammer in a vicious raid in May 1996.

Unwin told the court that on the night Miss Nguyen was killed, he had gone to the local Co-op to buy cigarettes and a bottle of alcohol.

He told the court: "As I left Anna was alive and well when I went to the shop.

"I opened the kitchen door and put the bottle of drink and John's cigarettes on the counter. I opened the dining room door and saw John standing there with his foot against Anna's head with a cord around her neck.

"Anna's body was on her front but her head was slightly to the side. I looked, I pulled the door to, stumbled back against my fridge and I slid to the floor. I thought she was dead, she wasn't moving, there was nothing from her.

"I was shocked and traumatised I didn't think it was real.

"I went outside, I had my phone out of my pocket. I heard John's voice, I went into the garage and he followed me inside.

"I asked what was going on. He said 'don't worry I will sort it out' and then he left the garage.

"I went into the yard and back into the kitchen. He called my name a few times and I blanked him. I sat on the floor and he texted me saying 'come in please'. He laid a pillow case over her face so I couldn't see her face.

"He said 'this is my mess I will sort it out'. He gave me a playful kick and said 'get yourself up off the floor'. I just stayed in the kitchen I didn't want to go in there.

"John got a sheet and asked where his petrol can was. I had a large drink of whisky and went to get the petrol can from my van and brought it back into the house.

"He was waffling on telling me not to worry and in between he was on the phone to his partner Coral sending lovey dovey texts between the two of them.

"I know I should have phoned the police but the fear of going back to jail was too much to bear. If I'd tried to call the police he'd have been very angry. I think I was just in too much shock at the time.

"I have seen John being aggressive in the past I was worried he would turn on me.

"He asked me if I would help him take her out of the house to move her. I said no at first but I was cajoled into doing it.

"I helped him carry her out of the house. She was laid down in the garage before Mr McFall, for want of a better word, threw her into the back seat of the car. When she was in the car he took the sheet off her.

"I closed the garage door, had a large drink and John got the petrol can and we went back out to the car. John put the petrol can into the footwell and got into the driver's seat. He drove the car away.

"He drove to the allotments, he knew of the track because he had been me when I walked my dog there."

At that point McFall interrupted proceedings, shouting: "Can I go to the cells? I can't sit and listen to any more of these lies".

Earlier, Unwin had claimed he had been threatened by McFall in the cells at court.

He told the jury: "He was saying 'You will never see your daughter again, I will have you hanged and I'll get your aunty gangbanged, he was shouting out her address. It has been happening throughout the proceedings and in custody.

"He knows how he's making me feel in blaming me for this. I don't know how a person I was close to could do this even now in the cells he is threatening me and my family.

"I would have killed for him, not in relation to the current proceedings, but if he was being attacked and it was him or them I would have put my life on the line for him."

(Proceeding)