Steamy sex rampage of anti-freeze poison wife

Pal tells how evil Kate Knight bedded a string of lovers as she tried to kill hubby

By Matthew Acton

EVIL poisoner Kate Knight tried to kill her husband Lee because she HATED sex with him and was having a string of AFFAIRS behind his back.

The REAL reason for her macabre murder plot emerged as a neighbour revealed how Knight made her SIP her deadly cocktail of red wine laced with anti-freeze to see if it tasted funny.

Trembling Sarah Johnson (pictured right) told the News of the World: "Kate used me as a human guinea pig.

She gave me a glass of wine and asked me to have a taste.

"After I said it seemed OK she showed me the anti-freeze bottle and told me, ‘I'm going to do it that way'.

"I thought it was just a sick joke then—because she was always talking about how she wanted to bump Lee off. But I know different now and it sends a chill down my spine."

Key trial witness Sarah, 28, also believes Knight's motive wasn't simply to cash in on her tragic husband's £130,000 life insurance policy.

"Kate was sex mad and had secret lovers all over the place behind Lee's back," she revealed. "She met them through the internet and had three mobiles to keep in touch with them all.

"Kate told me she couldn't bear Lee touching her. And she realised she could have lots more men if she could only get her nuisance husband out of the picture.

Visits

"She was even getting visits from one of her lovers at home while Lee was in hospital fighting for his life."

Callous Knight, 28, faces years in prison after a jury last week convicted her of attempted murder. She spent weeks lacing 38-year-old JCB worker Lee's favourite curries and wine with anti-freeze.

He was left blind, deaf and with kidney failure and brain damage. He survived despite Knight even giving him spiked drinks in hospital to try to finish him off.

Her sinister plot was only rumbled when shocked neighbour Sarah discovered Lee was seriously ill.

Sarah said: "I just wished I had shopped her to the police earlier—but they would never have believed me then.

"Kate's one of the most evil women in the world—and also the stupidest. She had a nice home and husband who adored her. But she wasn't happy with that—that's when she decided to plan a murder."

Sarah was shocked when Knight started confiding in her about her miserable sex life. "She told me she didn't love Lee any more and didn't find him attractive.

But when Lee was around it was like flicking a switch and she became a different person—apparently all loved up," said Sarah.

"One night when we were chatting she visibly squirmed as she told me, ‘I had to sleep with him again last night-I can't stand him touching me'.

"She said she just wanted it ‘over and done with'—but that she wanted some real passion in her life."

Knight soon started getting that over the internet at her home in Stoke-on-Trent.

"She'd spend hours in sex chats with men. She was mad about sex and she'd show me the emails sometimes. She'd often go off to Manchester and Birmingham to ‘meet friends' and insisted it was all innocent—but she later admitted it was men she was going to see.

"She was travelling to different cities to have sex and having a string of affairs behind Lee's back. I later found out from her that she needed three mobiles to keep track of all the different men she was seeing."

The affairs even continued while Lee was in hospital. "I would often see one of her lovers calling at the house," said Sarah.

"He would nip round for sex in between her hospital visits where she was still trying to poison Lee." When Knight first started talking about killing Lee, neighbour Sarah simply thought it was just talk.

"She asked me one day if I knew a HITMAN. I thought she was completely crackers. I didn't think she was serious because surely you wouldn't start telling a neighbour your plans to murder your husband if you were serious. It was one thing after another with her. I put it down to loneliness and just lies made up to amuse me."

Soon Knight started talking about spiking Lee's food and drink with large quantities of ecstasy and liquid iron because it would cause organ failure.

Then came the sinister wine-tasting. Sarah shuddered: "I can remember it like it was yesterday. I went around to see Kate and she just handed me a big glass of red wine. She asked me to sniff it and to tell what I could smell.

"I did it and told her it smelled like a lovely glass of red wine of Rioja. Then she said ‘Taste it' and I took a sip. Kate said, ‘Tell me if you can taste anything?'

"I couldn't spot anything wrong with it. She then took me into the kitchen and showed me a bottle of anti-freeze under the sink and said ‘I'm going to do it that way'. Then she took my glass and poured the wine away.

"Kate told me she'd researched the whole thing on the internet and found how the tannins in the red wine would disguise the taste and smell of anti-freeze.

"I just thought she'd gone a bit nuts. Looking back now, though, it seems I was her human guinea pig."

Knight had discovered anti-freeze turns to acid in the body destroying nerve endings and blood vessels and severely affecting tissue in the kidneys, brain and liver.

It can lead to blindness and deafness and the nervous system comes under attack, leading to violent spasms in the limbs.

Soon Sarah got the first inkling that all Knight's plot might be real.

She recalled: "Kate called me one day and said, ‘It's worked—he's almost a goner'. I panicked, but when I got back to my house I could see Lee's car parked on the drive and assumed that once again she was making things up.

"Not long after that I bumped into Lee's niece Sarah in Tesco and when she told me what state Lee was in I felt my knees buckle. I just blurted out, ‘Kate did it' and told her all about the anti-freeze. The colour drained from her face and she said she was going to call the police.

"When I got home my head was spinning—a woman capable of murder was living right next door to me. What I find unbelievable is how she thought she'd get away with it."

Evil

Lee was admitted to hospital in April 2005 and spent 16 weeks in a coma before he woke to be told by his mother, Annette, what his wife had done. Altogether he spent six months in hospital.

Even as he lay in his hospital bed, his wife continued to poison him before Sarah raised the alarm and she was arrested. Lee said: "I was delirious in hospital, but I remember Kate kept bringing in bottles of flavoured water and she would pour it for me.

"She had told my parents not to give me a drink because the nurses said I could have only a certain amount a day.

"Then she tried to tell the nurses she was in charge of giving me drinks while she was visiting.

"I have no doubt that stuff was doctored and she was trying to finish me off right under the doctors' noses. It takes a really evil person to do that."

Lee is now registered blind and deaf and has suffered permanent kidney damage and some paralysis. He needs dialysis three times a week and has had cochlear implants to help him hear and communicate.

He looks after the couple's son Jack, nine, with the help of his parents.

Sarah's damning testimony helped convict Knight who was told by Judge Simon Tonking she would face "a very considerable term of imprisonment" when sentence is passed.

Sarah said: "I felt so bad for having kept quiet, but I just thought the police would laugh at me—the whole thing sounded like some sort of Hollywood movie!

"Kate would just have denied it all and I would have had to continue to live next door to her. Looking back I can't believe she was so naive as to tell me her plans. It was only afterwards when I thought back to the ‘wine tasting' session that I realised what she was capable of.

"I hope she goes to prison for a very long time. Every time I see Lee I find it very difficult to comprehend everything that happened.

"She ruined his life and for that she deserves to rot."

matthew.acton@notw.co.uk