Costa man's lover tells of shock

The former fiancee of the Holloway Strangler today spoke of her "shock and hor ror" at learning he is now accused of murdering two girls on the Costa del Sol.

Lynne Kerr, 39, told the Evening Standard: "I had such a lucky escape and I feel so sorry for those girls."

She spoke as Scotland Yard detectives prepared to fly to Spain to interview suspected double killer Tony King about unsolved attacks on women in London dating back to the time of his release from prison in 1996.

Barman King, 38, who changed his name by deed poll from Tony Bromwich in 1995, is in custody in Spain accused of murdering two teenage girls.

Mrs Kerr, 39, said she was convinced of his innocence at the time of their relationship and promised to stand by him until he had served his 10-year jail term. But she then met and married another man while King was behind bars and heard nothing of her former lover for almost 20 years.

It was only when she saw news reports this weekend of a Briton suspected of killing two teenage girls in Spain that she realised what a narrow escape she had.

Mrs Kerr said: "It's the most horrible feeling, a nightmare, sickening.

"When I saw his picture the other day I felt sick. It's awful. I read he only did half his sentence - I want to know why. Why didn't they make him do the whole 10 years and get him some help?"

After meeting King, then a teenage print worker, in the Lyceum in the Strand, the pair enjoyed what Mrs Kerr says was a normal relationship.

Mrs Kerr, who has a son and a daughter aged 11 and 14, described him as "the perfect gentleman" throughout their four-year relationship.

She added: "I didn't know what to believe at the time, to be honest. And I thought, I'll never know. He always denied it all. Things like the police descriptions didn't seem to match, stuff like that."

Speaking from the Enfield home she shares with her husband and children, Mrs Kerr added: "I had no suspicions at all. He was a gentleman through and through. We just used to do the normal things, go to the cinema and pub.

"There was never anything he did with me that would have had me suspicious, not once. It makes you think, though, now. I think I'm lucky I got out when I did." Speaking of the moment she heard Bromwich had been arrested and charged with garrotting and indecently assaulting a string of young women in north London, Mrs Kerr said: "I was at work and I rang to speak to him and his work said he hadn't come in.

"So I rang his mum and she thought he was with me, and that was it - it all just started from there. It was a complete and utter shock."

Mrs Kerr, who works as a supermarket cashier, added that she continued to visit King in prison for six months after he was jailed. But she soon met the man she went on to marry, John Kerr, and abruptly cut off all contact with her former fiancé®

"I just stopped going to see Tony one day and that was that," she said. "I told his family to tell him I didn't want to see him anymore. His mum said I'd ruined his life.

"I know it was a bit cowardly of me but I'd met John and we'd fallen in love and I was falling out of love with Tony, it was a bit of both. And 10 years is such a long time to wait, I was young, only about 17 or 18 when I met him. It's a frightening prospect waiting all that time. He never said please come back or anything. He sent all the photos and letters back to me that I'd sent him in prison and I threw it all away. After I finished it his parents came round for the engagement ring and I gave it to them. I gave them everything. I just wanted to get on with my life."

Three years later, however, King stunned Mrs Kerr by sending her a card to congratulate her on the birth of her first child.

"The only time I heard from him, he sent me a card," she recalled. "It just said ' congratulations on your news'. That was ages afterwards. I have no idea how he found out."

Mrs Kerr, who was brought up Lynne Saunders in Walthamstow, said her ex-lover was a loner obsessed with pumping iron.

"He was always a big guy, really into weight-lifting," she said. "He had weights at home and he told me he would go to weight-lifting every Monday and Wednesday - although at the trial they said that was when he attacked those women."

King is believed to have arrived in Spain in 1997 shortly after being released from jail but is also understood to have made trips home to see his family in north London. Neighbours at his mother's home in Holloway yesterday told how he had visited the family only three weeks ago.