Jury in Sheffield case to decide if Gary Allen is guilty of killing two sex workers

The jury in the trial in Sheffield of a man accused of two murders has retired to consider its verdicts.
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Gary Allen, aged 47, of Bradbury’s Close, Parkgate, Rotherham, stands accused of two murders two decades apart.

He is alleged to have killed Alena Grlakova, 38, who disappeared on Boxing Day 2018 and whose body was found in a stream four months later.

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He is also charged with the murder of Samantha Class, 29, who was killed in Hull in October 1997.

Alena Grlakova is one of two women alleged to have been murdered by Gary AllenAlena Grlakova is one of two women alleged to have been murdered by Gary Allen
Alena Grlakova is one of two women alleged to have been murdered by Gary Allen

Allen stood trial over the earlier murder and was acquitted in 2000 but is being tried again because of new evidence which has since emerged.

Both women were sex workers at the time of their deaths.

Ms Class was said to have been ‘brutally murdered’, with a pathologist reporting that she had been stamped on, strangled with a ligature and run over with a car before her body was dumped in the Humber Estuary.

Ms Grlakova’s naked body was found naked in a stream in Rotherham.

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She was born and brought up in Slovakia and moved to the UK in 2008 with her husband and children but is said to have turned to prostitution at a low point in her life following the collapse of her marriage.

Jurors were told that months after Allen was cleared of murdering Ms Class, he attacked two sex workers in separate incidents in Plymouth and was convicted of both assaults.

He is alleged to have told probation officers about his dislike of sex workers and women in general.

Allen denies murder.

When asked about Ms Class, he said he did not strangle, beat, or drive over her and did not dump her body in the river.

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He told the jury he paid her for sex and last saw her as she walked away from his car.

Giving evidence about Ms Grlakova, Allen told the court that she had visited his flat on December 26 and he had made an ‘idle threat’ to beat her in an attempt to get her to leave.

He denied playing any part in her disappearance or death and said he last saw her as he marched her away from his home that evening.