Life for ex-Hell's Angel chief who killed in Scream mask

A psychotherapist was jailed for murder yesterday, after she killed a man with a shot in the stomach when he interrupted her in an attempt to kill the girlfriend of her former lover.

Heather Stephenson-Snell, 46, the former president of an all-female chapter of the Hell's Angels, had planned to murder Diane Lomax and frame her former lover, Adrian Sinclair.

Yesterday a jury at Manchester crown court found her guilty of Ms Lomax's attempted murder and the murder of Robert Wilkie, who left a neighbouring house in Radcliffe, Manchester, to see what the disturbance was. She had denied both charges.

But the court had heard that the Canadian national had drawn up an elaborate plot detailed on handwritten index cards which were later found by police. It included plans to make it look as though Mr Sinclair were responsible.

She had taken shooting lessons, worked out escape routes, studied Ms Lomax's home and even stored possible escape vehicles at the homes of friends before striking on Halloween last year, disguised in a ghost costume and a mask from the film Scream.

Mr Justice Wakerley sentenced Stephenson-Snell to life imprisonment and said she would serve a minimum of 22 years for murder. He added that the psychotherapist, who suffered from a personality disorder, always sought to be the centre of attention.

"The plans you made were breathtaking," he said. "You planned your escape meticulously and you had planned to frame Sinclair."

"Your lies were breathtaking and shameless and I note that you have shown absolutely no hint of remorse at what you have done ... you knew perfectly well what you were doing."

The court heard that Stephenson-Snell had met Mr Sinclair when he responded to her advert looking for a live-in dog sitter.

They split up when she decided that he was not suitable to look after her two dogs, but she became obsessed with him after he began a relationship with Ms Lomax.

She began bombarding the couple with abusive phone calls and death threats and making malicious allegations about them to police.

But the harassment stopped in spring last year as she began to plot Ms Lomax's murder.

Detective Superintendent Simon Barraclough of Greater Manchester police, who led the investigation, described Stephenson-Snell as a danger to society and "one of the most peculiar individuals I have ever had to deal with".

He said her victim had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mr Wilkie died almost instantly when Stephenson-Snell shot him at point blank range in the stomach as he tried to remove her mask. He had left the neighbouring house to remonstrate with her as she hammered on the door of Ms Lomax's home.

Stephenson-Snell fled the scene but was stopped by police in West Yorkshire shortly afterwards because she was driving so slowly along the M62. She gave a false name but was arrested after officers found the shotgun hidden under the bloodstained sheet she had been wearing as part of her disguise.

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