Driller killer Colin Howell's twisted plan after ex's latest bid for early release
Stewart went to the Court of Appeal to claim she was under the coercive control of her former lover when they plotted their partners' deaths.
Driller killer Colin Howell says he could launch an appeal to get out of jail earlier after hearing his killer ex Hazel Stewart started her bid for early release.
The demon dentist, who murdered his wife and his lover's husband in 1991 then staged the deaths as a double suicide, told other inmates at Maghaberry Prison, 'Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander'.
Last month 62-year-old Stewart, who was also convicted of the double murders of Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell, went to the Court of Appeal to claim she was under the coercive control of her former lover when they plotted their partners' deaths.
Double killer Colin Howell.
Counsel for the former Sunday School teacher claimed newly obtained expert medical opinion about her suffering from a mental disorder should be considered in a bid to secure an earlier release from prison.
But prosecutors countered that the overwhelming opinion from a range of psychiatrists who examined her closer to the time of the killings identified no signs of mental illness.
Sources in Maghaberry have told the Sunday World Howell believes if Stewart can claim she was suffering from PTSD so can he.
'Colin is telling people in prison if Hazel can get out early on grounds of suffering from mental health issues at the time of the murders so can he,' says a source.
'He even says he could have been suffering from PTSD after all the abortions he made his wife and Hazel have.
'He's claiming because of all the abortions that he instructed his wife and his lover to have caused him the PTSD and that had he not been suffering from that he claims that he never would have went on to commit those murders.
'He says a psychiatrist who gave evidence against him at his trial described him as being psychotic and while he didn't agree with that maybe he was suffering from PTSD or other mental illnesses like Hazel.
Hazel Stewart
'He is openly telling people 'Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander'.'
Howell, a former lay preacher is serving 21 years for the 1991 murders of his wife Lesley and RUC officer Trevor Buchanan, who was his lover Hazel Stewart's husband.
He gassed the mother of his two children with a hose from a car exhaust before driving her body to his lover's home, where she'd drugged her husband.
Howell used the same method to kill the 32-year-old policeman and then left both bodies in a fume-filled car in Castlerock, arranged to look like a double suicide.
Trevor Buchanan
The pair got away with the crime for 18 years until the dentist lost his eldest son in a freak fall and was scammed out of a huge sum of cash, prompting him to admit his crimes to church elders and the PSNI. He also implicated Stewart who was convicted in 2011.
The former Sunday school teacher, who has continued to protest her innocence claiming she was controlled by Howell, is due for release in 2029.
In a jailhouse interview four years ago, she confirmed that Howell drugged her in his dental surgery and had sex with her while she was unconscious, which she believes was a practice run for his later sexual assaults on female patients.
In 2011 Howell admitted to nine counts of sexual assault on four women patients, declaring in court, 'guilty and I'm sorry'.
He had previously admitted to a similar assault on a fifth woman. He was sentenced to five and a half years for the sex crimes, which had taken place over a ten-year period from 1998.
Lesley Howell
Last month Brendan Kelly KC, acting on Hazel's behalf, told the court new evidence had come to light from a psychiatrist who believed Stewart had been suffering from depression and PTSD at the time of the murders.
He told the court: 'At the time of the killings, there is evidence that the applicant was suffering from two forms of mental health - depression and PTSD - and coupled to the coercive behaviour of the co-defendant, these are features that ought to have been taken into account when determining the minimum term of the life sentence.
'That's what is at the core of this application.'
But a barrister for the Crown said reports were compiled by five other psychiatrists at the time, none of whom, he said, identified mental illness in Stewart.
'Howell's raging Hazel is yet again trying to separate what she did from what he did when he believes they acted in the same way,' said a prison source.
'And he can't understand why he got so long behind bars when he was the one who came forward and confessed to the murders while Hazel denied it and denies it still.
'Howell believes that since he committed the murders he feels that he is being punished from God anyway so feels that the 21-year sentence is excessive and that because of him suffering from PTSD at the time a sentence of 16 to 18 years would have been more appropriate.
'He feels now that he has been forgiven from above for his crimes and that his repenting has cured his mental health as he has truly repented and feels the time is now right for him to be released through a reduction on his original sentence to a more accurate sentence of 16 years.
'He seems to think that he has the support of the prison governor in his quest for freedom given his exceptional behaviour during his whole prison sentence.'
Last week we revealed how Howell wants to set up an evangelical church inside Northern Ireland's high security jail where he can be a spiritual leader for 'lost souls' living and working there.
After initially trying to make a position as the prison dentist but being refused sources say he is working on a plan to become a religious leader inside HMP Maghaberry with 'renewed energy'.
Last night a jail source said Howell saw himself as a leader and people in the jail refer to the 'Cult of Colin'
'Howell is extremely manipulative as he seems to use religion as a form of controlling other more vulnerable prisoners,' said the source.
'These inmates get taken in by the whole belief that repenting for your crimes will eventually lead to forgiveness and that forgiveness is something that he's able to pick up apparently from signs that he gets from God.
'He then informs the prisoners those prisoners he has had a sign that God has forgiven them but he's basically preying on some very desperate souls.'
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