SITTING in the small, bland parole board office, Tracey Millington-Jones gives what she considers to be the speech of her lifetime. Yet again.
For the fourth time in seven years, the distraught daughter is fighting to keep her mother’s twisted killer behind bars.
Tracey Millington-Jones won’t give up her campaign to keep her mum’s evil killer Christopher Farrow caged[/caption]
Shoe fetish sadist Farrow continues to apply for parole[/caption]
Tomorrow, shoe fetish sadist Christopher Farrow, who raped and stabbed to death 51-year-old Wendy Speakes in 1994 in her own home, will make his fourth attempt to be free, despite never expressing an ounce of remorse.
His release is inconceivable to mum-of-one Tracey, who wants him locked up for good.
She says: “I cried as I read my seven-page statement to the three members of the parole board, explaining why Farrow should never be released or downgraded to an open prison.
“Can you imagine how hard this is to do?
“I am fighting for my mum 31 years after her brutal death.
“But I believe I am also fighting for every woman.”
Wendy, an office receptionist from Wakefield, West Yorks, had two daughters — and they were so close they dubbed themselves the “three musketeers”.
Just eight months before her brutal murder, the proud mum had walked Tracey down the aisle.
But in March 1994 she unusually failed to turn up for work — and Tracey, who lives in Essex, was called by a colleague.
She says: “When I rang Mum and a police officer answered, I knew the worst had happened.
“I drove to Yorkshire and was told by investigating officer Bob Taylor that Mum was killed in the back bedroom of her house.
“Bob said to me, ‘I promise you, Tracey, I will find him’. I believed him.”
Police believe Farrow, then a 33-year-old printer from Leeds, had already stalked Wendy and knew she lived alone.
On the day she was killed, a witness at a factory over the road saw a man at her front door minutes after she arrived home at 6pm.
Not long later, the witness saw the man running off again.
In that short time, Farrow had tied Wendy up with a pair of stockings and made her wear a pair of used blue wedge sandals he had brought with him as he raped then repeatedly stabbed her.
Tracey says: “Bob told me Mum may have died with the first blow.
“I really hope so.
“I also think Farrow took a pair of Mum’s newly bought black court shoes away with him — a trophy.
“Mum’s death decimated us.
“My sister and I struggled to deal with it.
“My marriage fell apart.
“I became depressed and trusted no one.”
Wendy with Tracey at her wedding back in 1993[/caption]
Thousands of local men were tested for their DNA and Wendy’s house was torn apart in the search for clues. But it was to no avail.
Then, six years later, Tracey received a call from DCS Taylor.
She says: “Bob, who always affectionately called us ‘Wendy’s girls’, rang me — ‘Tracey, we’ve got a match’, he simply said.
“He was tearful and I cried.”
Father-of-three Farrow had been caught after a police officer heard him bragging in a Bradford pub about drink-driving.
When he was arrested for that, his fingerprint matched a partial print found inside Wendy’s front door.
After his arrest, Farrow eventually told detectives, “Someone was going to get it that day”.
He had been angry that his heavily pregnant partner did not want to have sex with him.
It is believed that Farrow travelled to Wakefield and firstly stalked a young, blonde, pregnant woman — labelled Woman A by the courts — and followed her home.
He knocked on her door and told her he was looking for his dad’s new house.
She was wary as she remembered seeing him looking at her that morning at a bus stop.
When her dog barked, she closed the door on him — and saved her life.
Mum’s death decimated us. My sister and I struggled to deal with it.
Tracey
An hour later, Farrow was at Wendy’s house with his killing kit — the shabby shoes, a four-inch kitchen knife and a pair of stockings he had bought from Superdrug that day.
When police searched his home, a poster of a woman’s long legs clad in high heels was found under the bed he shared with his then partner.
His first wife later revealed he made her cut the grass in stilettos.
Tracey says: “Bob told me that Farrow was more upset at being labelled a shoe fetishist than a murderer or rapist.
“How twisted is that?”
Farrow was jailed for life in November 2000, with a minimum 18 years.
Tracey says: “I was so relieved when he was jailed.
“But sadly, since 2018 I have had to fight every two years to keep this scumbag behind bars.
“He has never shown a shred of remorse.”
There is an extra layer of sadness for Tracey at this latest parole hearing as she does not have the unswerving support of DCS Taylor, who died in December last year.
Tracey says: “In the previous three parole hearings, Bob Taylor was always at my side.
“When he retired, he had a 100 per cent detection and conviction record in the 50-plus murder, rape, kidnap cases he headed.
“Farrow was his final scalp.
“In his last interview, he fully supported me for this hearing.
“He said, ‘You don’t go from a back street footballer to a Premier League player.
“Likewise, you don’t go from a drink-driver to a rapist and murderer of a stranger’.
Farrow leaves court during his trial in 2000[/caption]
“What else did he do in the six years after Wendy’s murder?
“I firmly believe he committed more crimes.
“Now, he’s not mixed with women for 25 years and has never dealt with his fetishism.
“He is a sociopath and a danger to all women out there.
“He was quietly spoken and amiable so women would not feel threatened by him if he sat next to them on a bus or talked to them as he drew them in.
“He did not look like a beast — but that is exactly what he is.”
After DCS Taylor’s death, a newspaper obituary was put on a Wakefield Facebook group, and it led to Tracey receiving a surprising message.
She says: “I was messaged by a man called Paul, who said his former partner Vanessa was an ex-prostitute who dealt with Farrow.
“When Farrow’s photo was released during his November 2000 trial, Vanessa immediately told Paul, ‘Oh my God, that’s one of my old punters’.”
In the first half of the 1990s, Farrow would pay to take Vanessa to a pub, where he would make her take off her high-heeled shoes and then sit and stare at her shoes.
They never once had sex.
I firmly believe there are previous victims of Farrow and there will be future ones. Freeing or sending him to an open prison is simply releasing a ticking time bomb.
Tracey
Tracey says: “Paul fully supports my plea to keep Farrow behind bars as he states he has used prostitutes before, he will use them again — and they are easy targets.
“I know of three other women who believe Farrow stalked them, including three months prior to Mum’s death.
“He got into one woman’s house with a request to use the phone to contact his dad.
“When she realised he had been on her bus and had followed her home, and when she heard a dial tone and knew he was not speaking to anyone, she screamed.
“Farrow panicked and ran off, pushing a neighbour who had come to her rescue out of the way.”
Six years later, the neighbour positively identified Farrow on his arrest.
He denied a charge of attempted burglary and it remains on file.
Tracey is now urging the parole board to take on board her fears.
She says: “I firmly believe there are previous victims of Farrow and there will be future ones.
“Freeing or sending him to an open prison is simply releasing a ticking time bomb.
“He’s only 64 now, is a regular user of the prison gym and boasts he is nicknamed ‘The Tank’.
“I’ve been told this by one of his family members.
“I do not believe he has been rehabilitated.
“Each time I give my victim impact statement to the parole board — in 2018, 2020, 2023 and this month — the coward cannot cope with it and refuses to be in the same room as me.
“He is obviously unable to face the impact his crime has had on me.
“He does not deserve to be free.
“I will always be looking over my shoulder if he is.
“I fear I am a target.
“After all, I am the one who has kept him behind bars for these extra years.”
