It will be titled The Ladywill be produced by one of those responsible for the successful The Crown and will be broadcast on the ITV network. But, although for historical reasons it must be related to the British royal family, its plot will be dark, turbulent, and will get much closer to the true crimes than to tinsel and the fanfare that productions about The Firm have accustomed us to. The life of Jane Andrewswho was Sarah Ferguson’s assistant, is who she is.
From Tatler have indicated that this new series will be “partly fictional” when it comes to rediscovering what happened to this woman who He went from being born into a tremendously humble family in Lincolnshire to ending up in prison after even getting the wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, to dedicate a book to him with the words “whose loyalty and kindness know no bounds.” A journey of rise and fall that no one could have expected when she was born, in 1967, the daughter of an economically desperate and one hundred percent unhappy family.
His father, a carpenter, was often unemployed, while his mother was a social worker. Andrews, he came to remember, He was rummaging through the folds of the sofa to find enough money for a loaf of bread. And she was an excellent student, but the vicissitudes of life made them move to Grimsby, a working-class neighborhood where their house had an outside toilet. All this, together with a weak character, made that girl prone to mental health problems.
Thus, in addition to suffering from an eating disorder, episodes of depression and panic attacks —plus a suicide attempt at age 15—, would be diagnosed during the trial with borderline personality disorder. His personality was based on his social relationships, which tended to be toxic and led to abuse. Before reaching the age of majority, she had already suffered an abortion, had dropped out of school and was enrolled in a local fashion school.
But precisely while working as a clerk in a store, she found a copy of the magazine The Lady. Since she had nothing to lose, she cast her lot in a job offered anonymously to be a personal assistant. The announcement, without her knowing it, It was to become part of the staff by Sarah Ferguson, But they called her, and she ended up in London, with barely 10 pounds in her pocket, asking a big-eyed taxi driver to take her to the side door of Buckingham Palace.
In a later interview, from prison, with Guardianshe would remember her feeling from that time, when a maid accompanied her to her chambers, where there was a bouquet of roses and a note that said “Welcome to the team, Boss.” Andrews, he confessed, experienced that he had moved forward by “running away from all the horrible things” of his past, everything “that Grimsby represented.”
Not even half a year had passed since he submitted that application for the job when he was rubbing shoulders with Lady Di at Balmoral. That drastic change in life affected his weak way of being, according to what they said, because he began to blend in with his employer.imposing their accent and copying their way of dressing, behaving and even their haircut by Fergie. Evil tongues added in her criminal trial that she was the quintessential climber of those days in the monarchy and that even Sarah Ferguson, at that time pregnant with Princess Beatrice, ended up nicknamed her “Lady Jane”, mocking her aristocratic airs.
But that was the 180º turn that his life had taken that August 1990, with a paid for apartment in Battersea Park, his own car and even a first husband, Christopher Dunn-Butler, an executive at the technology company IBM.20 years older than her, whom she had married in 1989. A man who could take care of her but whose relationship did not work, being more a couple of friends than husband and wife. They would end up divorcing in 1994.
Andrews, in fact, admitted to having been unfaithful on several occasions, although between the lifestyle and a troubled marriage his closeness with Sarah, who for her part also had her lovers – her photographs with them were scandalous. a millionaire from Texas sucking his feet during a summer vacation—, increased considerably, traveling around the world together and becoming confidants.
Her new companies and way of life did not make her leave behind her mental problems and her bad relationships with men. For example, when she fell in love with Dimitri Horne, whose family owned a Greek shipping empire, and who moved with her to London. In one of their fights, as Horne would tell police, Andrews became enraged when he told her he wanted to end their relationship and destroyed the apartment and her belongings. Jane, in fact, cHe would fall into another depression and a new suicide attempt which he survived.
But all those troubles and his difficult adaptation to high society took their toll on him. Sarah Ferguson, said to be jealous that the Tuscan aristocrat she was rumored to be having an affair with, Gaddo della Gherardesca, had his eye on Andrews – other staff members have claimed it had more to do with the need to cut costs – He fired her and expelled her from Buckingham. It was November 1997. and Jane was desperate, because she had very few bullets left to spend before she had to return to her previous life after tasting the honeys of the jet set.
And in 1998, Thomas Cressman appeared. This former stockbroker and son of the former president of Aston Villa became Jane’s last hope to never look back again… But it didn’t last long. No children, no marriage, no anything. In 2000, while on vacation on the French Riviera, Cressman told her that he had no intention of marrying her—perhaps because of her low birth. They returned to London without leaving the discussion.
What’s more, it escalated so much that Thomas himself ended up calling the police out of fear that someone would be hurt. The agents did not come, but it was a key call, because that same night, when he was asleep, Jane hit him with a cricket bat and stabbed him in the chest to death. And he fled.
Although she tried an alibi, sending messages to her friends asking about Thomas and saying that she was afraid because they had been blackmailing her, she was eventually found in Cornwall, after a last suicide attempt in her car with an overdose. His defense at the trial divided society, because described Cressman as a sex-obsessed abuser who ended up attacking her and constantly humiliating her.
He did not deny the murder. sheltering from his problems since childhood, but the prosecutor’s office and the tabloid press did the rest: The former called her a scorned woman who had not known how to take no for an answer, while the media gave her the nickname “The Murderer of “Fatal attraction”that 80’s movie with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, OR “The Killer Housemaid” [“The killer dresser”]. She was sentenced to several years in prison.
She escaped in 2009, taking refuge in a hotel room with her family, and was quickly arrested and returned to East Sutton Park Prison. where it would end up leaving in 2019. Now, Jane Dawn Elizabeth Andrews, at 57, may watch on television the series that Debbie O’Malley is writing and which, she believes, invites reflection, as it is a “painful” story that explores “female ambition and human fragility and a devastating chain of events that ended a man’s life.
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