Gary Allen: National Crime Agency investigating unsolved attacks on sex workers

The 47-year-old was found guilty last week of two murders 21 years apart – one in Parkgate, Rotherham, in 2018 and another in Hull in 1997.

Both his victims were prostitutes.

He described sex workers as ‘scum’ and ‘the lowest of the low’ when talking to probation workers.

He also admitted to having regular, violent fantasies involving sex workers, stating: “I like to frighten them, I like to cause pain, I like to make them cry, I like blood, I like to hurt them, I enjoy it, it makes me feel good.”

The naked body of Alena Grlakova, 38, was found in a stream in Rotherham four months after she disappeared.

Police found chilling voice recordings made by Allen on the day Alena was last seen alive in which he threatened to harm the mum-of-four if she returned to his flat again.

Two decades earlier, he killed 29-year-old Samantha Class after having sex with her.

Allen, who is to be sentenced next week, went on trial in 2000 for Samantha’s murder but was acquitted at that time.

His trial in Sheffield is historic for being the first in South Yorkshire where a suspect has gone on trial twice for the same murder after being found not guilty the first time.

Normally suspects can only be tried for the same crime once if they are acquitted, but due to a change in legislation, suspects can now be tried again if ‘new and compelling evidence’ comes to light.

The National Crime Agency said: “The NCA’s Serious Crime Analysis Section and Major Crime Investigative Support team have been assisting South Yorkshire Police and Humberside Police with advice and guidance on specific features of their investigations into Gary Allen.

“As part of our ongoing work, we will continue to assist forces in the consideration of historic unsolved cases that may be of interest and would appear to share some characteristics with those investigated here.”

There are two unsolved prostitute deaths in Sheffield, but Allen has been ruled out as a suspect for the most recent, in November 2001, because he was in prison at the time for attacks on two sex workers in Plymouth.

Michaela Hague, 25, from Pitsmoor, who was stabbed to death after being picked up by a man in a car on Bower Street, just off Corporation Street, and taken to a nearby isolated car park, where she was found a short time later with 19 stab wounds.

Allen was serving a five-and-a-half year sentence behind bars at the time and was released in 2003.

The other unsolved case in Sheffield dates back to 1994, when 19-year-old Dawn Shields was killed after getting picked up in a car in Broomhall – Sheffield’s red light district at the time.

Her body was found buried in a shallow grave a week later on the slopes of Mam Tor, Castleton, in the Peak District.

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