Article from the times - further small details re IS
Where did it all go so wrong for this once handsome and intelligent man, who married his university sweetheart, became a father to two sons and was a wealthy homeowner?
Ian Stewart was born to Brenda and Keith Stewart in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, where he grew up as an only child. In court he described his childhood as “difficult” because of his mother’s post-natal depression and subsequent obsessive compulsive disorder. He said that he often felt he could not take friends from his grammar school home.
In 1978 Stewart began a course in electronic computer systems at Salford University. Back at home for the holidays, he had an accident that left the long scar up his right cheek.
“I was going to Stevenage Leisure Centre to play sport with my friends,” he told the trial. “It was icy, I put my hand on the door, my foot slipped and I went straight through the glass door.” He was given £7,000 in compensation when it was found the door had the wrong type of glass.
Despite this, his university years appeared to be happy. In his third year, he met Diane Lem, a “stunning” woman studying French and German. “We met in the canteen and I stole a chip off her plate,” he said. “That’s how we met.”
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wednesday february 22 2017
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HELEN BAILEY MURDER[/COLOR]
The introverted computer expert who became a killer
Georgie Keate
February 22 2017, 5:00pm,
The Times
Ian Stewart in one of his police interviews. He married his university sweetheart, Diane, in 1985 but she died in 2010 after collapsing in the gardenHERTFORDSHIRE CONSTABULARY/PA
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Where did it all go so wrong for this once handsome and intelligent man, who married his university sweetheart, became a father to two sons and was a wealthy homeowner?
Ian Stewart was born to Brenda and Keith Stewart in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, where he grew up as an only child. In court he described his childhood as “difficult” because of his mother’s post-natal depression and subsequent obsessive compulsive disorder. He said that he often felt he could not take friends from his grammar school home.
In 1978 Stewart began a course in electronic computer systems at Salford University. Back at home for the holidays, he had an accident that left the long scar up his right cheek.
“I was going to Stevenage Leisure Centre to play sport with my friends,” he told the trial. “It was icy, I put my hand on the door, my foot slipped and I went straight through the glass door.” He was given £7,000 in compensation when it was found the door had the wrong type of glass.
Despite this, his university years appeared to be happy. In his third year, he met Diane Lem, a “stunning” woman studying French and German. “We met in the canteen and I stole a chip off her plate,” he said. “That’s how we met.”
While she stayed to continue her degree, Stewart left with first class honours and got a job in Hitchen. He then began a PhD at Cambridge University and he and Diane bought their first house in the town with the £7,000 compensation money.
The pair married in 1985 and their first son, Jamie, was born in 1992. Stewart told the jury that his wife had “epileptic fits” as a teenager and suffered one after their son’s birth, causing her to be banned from driving for three years.
They moved to Bassingbourn and built their own house, living in a caravan until it was finished.
At this point everything appeared to disintegrate in Stewart’s life. In 1995, just after his second son, Oliver, was born, he had myasthenia gravis diagnosed — a condition that weakens the muscles.
He had two operations, leaving him with one vocal cord. After going back to work for six months, he had another attack while the family were on holiday in France.
Stewart was signed off for life and has not worked since.
Between then and 2010, when Diane died after collapsing in her garden, the Stewart family appeared to live a normal life. She went back to work as a school secretary once her sons grew older, while Stewart occupied himself with various hobbies.
However, friends of the pair in Bassingbourn remember a vivacious and popular woman married to an unwell and introverted man.
She was a “pillar” of the Bassingbourn Bowls Club, sat on the committee for the Bassingbourn Air Cadets, was friendly with the local vicar and organised a village music festival.
Stewart was remembered for bizarre incidents involving money. Bill Manley, chairman of the local bowls club, recalled: “He was very, very money orientated. In our bowls club he was treasurer and I remember two events. One was when our irrigation tank needed replacing and everyone was asked to chip in a tenner. He was the only one who refused and said he paid membership and shouldn’t have to pay anymore.
“The other event was when we had a club final and at the end there was a nice tea which people had to pay £3 for. He went ballistic. I had to grab him and take him to one side to tell him to shut up and stop embarrassing the club or go home.”
Other friends of Diane remember how the widower was “running around with other women” soon after her death, once referring to one of them as his wife.
He also bought an MG sports car three weeks after Diane’s death and was often seen driving round the area in it.
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