Gary Allen: Sex-worker killer found guilty in Sheffield prepares to discover his fate

A man who killed two sex workers two decades apart is to be sentenced in Sheffield this week.
Gary Allen is to be sentenced on Wednesday for the murders of two sex workersGary Allen is to be sentenced on Wednesday for the murders of two sex workers
Gary Allen is to be sentenced on Wednesday for the murders of two sex workers

Gary Allen, aged 47, was found guilty of both murders following a historic trial at Sheffield Crown Court.

In 2000 he stood trial over the murder of 29-year-old Samantha Class in Hull, but was found not guilty and left court a free man.

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Samantha had been strangled, stamped on and run over by a car before her body was dumped in the River Humber and eventually washed up on a riverbank.

He was identified as a suspect when he was arrested for drink driving a few months later and a routine DNA swab matched traces of semen found inside Ms Class' body.

He admitted paying Ms Class £30 for sex but denied any part in her murder and was found not guilty by jurors.

Eighteen years after that trial he came to the attention of South Yorkshire Police as a suspect in a missing person enquiry when Alena Grlakova, 38, disappeared.

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Phone records proved Allen, who lived close to where mum-of-four Alena was last seen alive, was an acquaintance of the prostitute.

Detectives then discovered chilling voice recordings made by Allen in which he threatened to harm Alena on the night she was last seen alive.

Her naked body was found in a stream four months later.

Detectives in South Yorkshire and Humberside applied for the original murder trial verdict to be quashed and were granted permission to charge him with the original murder again as well as the more recent killing.

Allen is to be sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday.

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The judge in the case, Mr Justice Goose, has warned him to prepare for an inevitable life sentence.

He will set the minimum number of years the killer must serve before he can be ever be considered for parole.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Oughton, of South Yorkshire Police, described Allen’s offending as ‘despicable’ and described him as a ‘very dangerous individual’.

When talking to a probation officer about his hatred of sex workers, Allen said: “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.”