A brute nicknamed ‘scarface’ was jailed for life f

A brute nicknamed ‘scarface’ was jailed for life for a
second time today (Mon) for the frenzied murder of the same
woman.

Both Old Bailey juries took less than an hour to convict
powerfully built Richard King, 28, who has a huge scar running
from his ear to his mouth.

In May 1990 King was found guilty of stabbing Mrs Veronica
Rose, 29, fifty times all over her body – ‘she was in effect
mutiliated.

‘
But the following year the Court of Appeal ordered a re-trial
after it decided the trial judge made a mistake in summing up
the case.

Today (Mon) a second jury once again found King guilty of
the brutal murder of Mrs Rose.

After convicting King the jury heard that he had found
love behind bars and married a woman ‘nearly twice his age.

‘
She had been asked to write to him by one of the ‘elders’
of the Christian Centre to which she belongs in her hometown of
Holmfirth, nr Huddersfield, Yorkshire.

Within six months of her first visit to King in Wakefield
jail in late December 1990 the couple were pledging their troths
at Market Harborough Registry office.

King, at the time a convicted lifer, had been transferred
to Leicestershire based Gartree top security jail.

On June 2, 1991 they were married.

At the end of that month
King’s murder conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Unusually he was not freed, instead the court ordered that
he be retried for the savage crime.

King was transferred to Brixton Prison as a remand prisoner
and in September the new Mrs King moved to London to be near him.

Over the next few months she visited him ‘almost everyday.

‘
Fifty-year-old, twice married Mrs King, told Judge Bruce
Laughland QC: ‘Richard has always been gentle with me and loving
towards me.

‘I have never seen any signs of violence.

I have told him I
will wait for him,’ she added in a soft voice.

Before she left the witness box the judge applauded her
‘courage.

‘
‘Thankyou for coming Mrs King.

I am sure we all admire
your courage for coming to the court and giving evidence.

‘
Then turning to King, Judge Laughland said: ‘This was a
determined and cruel attack which you launched on Veronica Rose.

‘The wounds were so various that there was every indication
that you intended not only to cause her really serious injury, but
to deprive her of her life.

‘The motive for the attack remains unexplained to this day.

‘It seems to me in the light of all I have heard that you
really are a very dangerous man.

‘
At the start of the trial prosecutor Mr John Bevan had told
the jury that new evidence had come to light since King’s last
trial.

It was discovered that King had admitted he was the killer,
to a Home Office psychiatrist, way back in 1989.

But during his first trial he insisted he had nothing
to do with the murder.

But as a result of his early confession to the psychiatrist
coming to light, King, of Seaton Point, Nightingale Estate, Clapton,
e.

London was forced to change his story.

He pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mrs Rose on the
grounds of diminished responsibility.

He ‘resurrected’ the story
he gave the psychiatrist – that he killed her because he thought
she was a witch.

But the second jury he faced did not believe him either and found
him guilty of murder.

Houseproud Mrs Rose’s butchered body was found by her husband
when he went to her flat in Bakewell Court, Mandeville Street, Hackney,
East London, on the evening of August 11 1989 – the day she died.

King had killed her after having sex with her.

Police later found his footprint and fingerprint on a newspaper
lying close to the woman’s mutilated body, said Mr Bevan.

Another clue in the case, which could have come straight out of
an Alfred Hitchcock movie, was a diary belonging to Mrs Rose, which
contained the mysterious entry ‘M’ followed by a telephone number.

This turned out to be King’s home telephone number, the court
heard.

The same number appeared in another diary owned by the victim,
this time it was next to the name ‘Malcolm.

‘
Mr Bevan said King frequently advertised for female company
in the lonely hearts column of The Voice newspaper.

He told one
woman he met this way and dated a number of times, that his name
was Malcolm.

The court heard King had visited Mrs Rose ‘on a number of
occasions for sex for money.

‘
She suffered 50 or more wounds to her head, trunk, and limbs
– all over her body.

Wounds had penetrated her lungs, one kidney,
her liver and her heart, said Mr Bevan.

When arrested King denied being the murderer and at his first
trial forward a ‘lying defence.

‘
But as Mr Bevan put it, and the jury accepted: ‘It was murder
the first time and it is murder this time.

‘
Bespectacled, smartly dressed Mrs King, who has only be
temporarily living in London, will now be returning to Holmfirth.

ends