TV writer guilty of plotting to partner’s death

A retired TV producer is facing a life sentence after he was found guilty of trying hire three hitmen to kill his partner so he could spend her inheritance on his young lover.

David Harris, 68, who worked on ‘The Bill’ for 18 years, dreamed of spending his twilight years on a Caribbean beach with 6ft 1in Lithuanian Ugne Cekaviciute, 28, after meeting the former professional basketball player in a brothel.

But the 5ft 8in pensioner was broke and needed 69-year-old parish councillor Hazel Allinson dead so he could sell her £800,000 house in the pretty village of Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex.

Twice married Harris was besotted with Ugne and had taken naked photographs of his girlfriend posing with the family spaniels in the home Ms Allinson treasured.

Harris, who has a daughter from a previous relationship, claimed he offered sums of up to £250,000 to at least six potential hitmen as research for a thriller novel called ‘Too Close to Kill’.

But he had not written a word and a jury of seven men and five women unanimously convicted him of three counts of soliciting to murder at the Old Bailey.

Prosecutor William Boyce QC had told the court the case was a real life crime drama which could have been title ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugne.’

Harris, who was found naked in bed with his girlfriend when he was arrested on 12 November last year, stayed seated as the verdicts were read out.

He raised his eyebrows before bowing his head with his hands clasped as if in prayer.

It can now be revealed Ms Allinson, who came to court every day of the two-and-a-half week trial, refused to give evidence for the prosecution and did not want her police interviews used against Harris.

While watching him give evidence she even contacted defence lawyers about taking to the witness stand in his defence, but changed her mind after she was asked to leave the public gallery.

She was not in court today for the verdicts.

Harris trawled sleazy bars, greasy spoon cafes and rundown garages in a bid to hire muscle, approaching at least six potential hitmen over a period of almost two years.

He handed out copies of a black-and-white family photograph featuring his partner of nearly 30 years, a picture of her convertible Saab car with personalised number plate beginning ‘HAZ’ and a print-out of her diary.

He wanted to make the death look like a freak accident, car-jacking or mugging as she walked to church for choir practice or left her country club, where she went to the gym or did Pilates classes.

He claimed he met two hitmen – ‘Hackney Hitman’ and ‘Bethnal Green Hitman’ – before handing a third man, known as ‘Soldier’ £250.

But mechanic and private investigator Christopher May tried to warn his target after he secretly recorded a meeting on his mobile phone in which Harris suggested he carry out the hit whilst Ms Allinson was in hospital having her ovaries removed.

Harris said ‘I want you to know need to get this done and the sooner the better, adding: ‘So this time next week I could be sitting pretty and so could you.’

He offered sums of up to £250,000, then provided minute-by-minute text updates of his partner’s movements as she went out for supper, walked the dogs, or went to and from church.

When she returned home on 28 February last year, Harris moaned: ‘She’s back. What the f*** happened. She’s dog walking this afternoon. Where are you?’

Duke Dean – a 6ft 4inch man mountain known as ‘Zed’ – met Harris in an a cafe in Stratford, east London and offered £175,000.

On 5 November Harris took him on a guided tour of West Sussex as they discussed how Ms Allinson’s death could be staged to look like she had driven off a cliff after she was frightened by a deer.

But Mr Dean, who speaks with an American accent having grown up in the United States, went to detectives at the City of London police when Harris asked if he had access to chloroform or poison.

‘It was very scary because that’s when I realised now he was really a serious,’ he said.

Undercover officer ‘Chris’ then posed as Mr Dean’s ‘associate’ at a meeting in a car park in Balham, south London on 11 November.

Harris patted the officer down for a ‘wire’, not knowing the encounter was being secretly filmed as he told Chris how he had thought of pushing Ms Allinson off a cliff every day while they were on holiday in the south of France.

He whinged ‘her purse strings are so tight it’s just f***ing unbearable’ and said: ‘I want the next five years with a girlfriend living by the sea.’

Harris was arrested the following morning having promised £200,000 to the officer and said: ‘Whatever happens, it’s got to be fatal.’

He once lived in exclusive Mayfair and drove an expensive sports car working as an assistant director in the lucrative film and commercial industry.

But he lost his job through excessive drinking before a friend helped him to land the role as location manager on The Bill in 1989, where Ms Allinson – who also worked on the original Poldark, Doctor Who – was employed as a script supervisor.

Harris moved into her home in Norbury, south London, following a whirlwind romance and he credited her for saving him from alcoholism after giving up on 3 December 1989.

The couple, who have three spaniels, moved to the Southfields area in 1992, then to Wandsworth Common in 1997, with the properties in Ms Allinson’s name.

Harris retired in 2006 citing health conditions including a bad back, depression and stress, and in 2010 he and Ms Allinson quit London for Amberley after selling up for £1 million.

They soon became pillars of the community. Ms Allinson was a keen church-goer and threw herself into village life, becoming a parish councillor and joining the local choir and book club.

But she was forced into retirement and suffered a string of health problems, including breast cancer.

Ms Allinson controlled the finances, topping up househusband Harris’s meagre state pension with a £300-a-month allowance as well as lump sum payments totaling £50,000.

When she went off sex, Harris sought out prostitutes within a 20 mile radius, meeting Miss Cekaviciute in a brothel in Worthing towards the end of 2011.

She had turned to prostitution having once played basketball professionally and represented her country in the sport.

‘I had become besotted with her. I thought that she was too young and too nice to be in a brothel,’ Harris said.

‘Once Ugne came out of the brothel and I started to see her on a more regular basis…it started to get very expensive – dinner, lunch, hotels – and I just couldn’t afford it so I started drawing out of that capital Hazel had given me.’

He added: ‘All I needed was Hazel’s love. I needed Ugne for sex.’

Harris told Ms Allinson he was umpiring village cricket matches or visiting his brother Tony in hospital when they met for trysts at seedy hotels in the St Katherine Docks area of east London.

He sneaked her into the house when his partner was away to take naked photographs of her posing with the dogs.

Ugne was studying for a business qualification and Harris and even duped Ms Allinson into doing his girlfriend’s homework.

With mounting debts, he borrowed sums of up to £16,000 from friends and neighbours and even faked a burglary so he could pawn expensive watches, rings and jewellery and continue the fling.

Harris told the court he hoped his planned book would become a best seller, be turned into a Hollywood movie and to sort out his finances.

‘It was based on a guy based on me, my sort of age, meets a young girl, falls in love, becomes besotted and over development decides he wants to be with her and decides what he has to do about his wife Holly,’ he said.

‘He had to be secure in the knowledge he wouldn’t be found guilty of it, he wouldn’t be punished for it,’ he explained

Harris, of (Garden House) East Street, Amberley, West Sussex, denied three counts of soliciting to murder.

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