Duchess of York’s murderer aide Jane Andrews enjoys her freedom

Back home and out in the sunshine, this is convicted killer Jane Andrews enjoying her freedom.

The former aide to the Duchess of York was jailed for life for murdering her millionaire boyfriend 19 years ago.

Tom Cressman was stabbed in the chest as he slept in his flat in Fulham, West London, after he refused to marry her. Andrews, 52, who was Sarah Ferguson’s dresser for nine years, was initially released from jail in 2015.

She was locked up again in July 2018, allegedly over an accusation she harassed a former lover. It was not thought to be connected with Mr Cressman’s family.

Andrews, pictured at the wheel of a car, has been granted her freedom again by the Parole Board after she was sent back to custody in 2018 

Now the Parole Board has granted her freedom again. She has moved back to Cleethorpes, north-east Lincolnshire, where a number of relatives live.

When Andrews was sent back to custody in 2018, Mr Cressman’s hotelier brother, Rick, 66, said: ‘I get no pleasure from saying I told you so. It was inevitable she’d be recalled as clearly she wasn’t ready to be let out. 

‘At the parole hearing which saw her freed, our family’s joint letter warning of the dangers of her being released was clearly ignored.

‘This is just a further unwelcome reminder of what Andrews did to Tom, and how she’s left us all bereft and utterly devastated.’

He previously warned: ‘Any man who gets into a relationship with her will be at serious risk as she clearly cannot cope with rejection.’

Jane Andrews, now 52, who was Sarah Ferguson’s dresser for nine years, was initially released from jail in 2015. She and the Duchess of York are pictured together in 1994

Tom Cressman (pictured right) was stabbed in the chest as he slept in his flat in Fulham, West London, after he refused to marry Andrews (left)

In 2009, Andrews escaped from an open prison in Kent to meet her parents in a graveyard in the middle of the night.

She received thousands in taxpayers’ cash to try to beat her murder charge during the Old Bailey trial in 2001. 

Her barristers received £65,403.44 in legal aid, with her solicitors getting a further £27,503.56 in legal aid, it was reported. 

Jurors rejected her claims that she awoke to find Mr Cressman hitting her and that in self-defence she hit him with a cricket bat and ‘he must have come forward on to the knife in the dark’.

In reality she had, as a spurned lover, embarked on revenge to rival that of Glenn Close’s obsessed character in Fatal Attraction.

After attacking Mr Cressman, she left her lover dying in his bed as she went on the run, contacting friends on her mobile to pretend she knew nothing of his fate. 

Since her release Andrews has reportedly worked as an antique dealer near her Cleethorpes home. Her stock included royal items.  

Jane Andrews, pictured left in 2015 following her initial release from prison for the murder of her lover Tom Cressman in 2000, worked for nine years as the Duchess of York’s dresser until she was fired in 1997

A source told The Sun last July: ‘She said she was selling the royal items because they held bad memories for her. She said they belonged to her and a wealthy ex-husband.

‘She said she used to live in London but didn’t visit any more.’  

In the run-up to her release from New Hall jail in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 2015 the murderess bought a four-bedroom character cottage in the North for more than £200,000.

The cash purchase was made possible by the substantial profit she made while in prison on the sale of her old flat in an exclusive block overlooking Battersea Park, South London. She bought it for £100,000 in 1996 and sold it for £450,000 in 2011, it was reported at the time.  

Although technically Sarah’s dresser, Andrews’ main task was to shop for the Duchess.

She made headlines in 1995 after jewellery worth £250,000 was stolen from one of the duchess’s suitcases, which Andrews had checked onto a plane in New York. 

The jewellery, a diamond necklace and bracelet given to the Duchess as a wedding gift from the Queen,  had been stolen by a luggage handler. It was later recovered and returned to the Duchess. 

Andrews was fired from the Royal Household in 1997. 

Andrews, right, pictured with the Duchess of York, left, was fired from the Royal Household in 1997, three years before she murdered her sleeping lover

Andrews, pictured in 2015, was recalled to prison last year after it was alleged she was harassing a former lover

It was also alleged that royal aides believed Andrews ‘fleeced’ the Duchess of £10,000 in the nine years she spent travelling with her.

The claim that she had helped herself to significant amounts from Sarah’s private accounts only came to light after she left royal service in the late Nineties. 

Two years into her royal job, Andrews was introduced through friends to Christopher Dunn-Butler, an IBM computer manager who was divorced and 20 years her senior. They married in 1990 in her native Grimsby.

But the union only lasted six years, as Andrews’ love life proved to be as colourful as her career. She is said to have conducted a number of affairs, one of them with a bodyguard attached to the Royal Family.

The manner of Andrews’ defence at her trial, in which she accused Mr Cressman of raping her hours before she killed him, dismayed his family and the detectives who investigated his death. 

Former police officer Jim Dickie, who led the murder inquiry, said: ‘She murdered him in life and murdered him again in death by trying to ruin his reputation.’ 

Mr Cressman, 39, ran a successful business supplying covers for classic cars and was a business partner of former racing driver Sir Stirling Moss.