Tenniswood allegedly had sex with another woman while she was asleep, court was told

Edward Tenniswood kept a chilling photograph of top fashion model Heather Stewart-Whyte, it can now be revealed.

During his defence, Tenniswood claimed to have “documentary evidence” of a relationship with the former cover-girl, which she has since denied.

He claimed he dated the British model in the 1980s and 1990s and that he had kept her love letters, which had been written with her lipstick.

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He admitted during the trial that he kept a picture of the model “as a memento”.

He told the jury: “I haven’t had an immensely successful life, but I’m lucky enough to have had some very attractive girlfriends, one of whom was a very successful fashion model actually.

“She’s called Heather Stewart-Whyte. [I} dated her at the end of the 1980s, bordering into the 1990s before she went off to New York.

“She got married to [former tennis player] Yannick Noah.”

Miss Stewart-White, who later split from Mr Noah, denied ever knowing Tenniswood.

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Speaking to a news agency from her home in west London, the 47-year-old said: “I have never heard of him.

“I don’t know him.

“Do you know how many times, especially when I was modelling, people said they knew me?”

It can now also be revealed that another woman, who knew Tenniswood but cannot be named, said he was “a controlling man, violent and abusive when drunk.”

She claimed she woke up “and found Eddie having sex with her,” on several occasions.

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The woman called the police on one occasion and Tenniswood was arrested for affray, but she did not press charges and he was released.

Another victim told the court Tenniswood throttled and kissed her when she was a teenager and said he also pinned her down and held a knife to her on another occasion.

It can now be revealed she also alleged on another occasion when she was at a barbecue and Tenniswood was “in drink”, he became angry, chased her and pinned her down but she managed to kick him and get away.

Tenniswood had denied all the accusations and the judge ruled they were not strictly relevant to the case.

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After the first day of the case, Tenniswood complained to the court that fellow inmates at HMP Woodhill had threatened to throttle him after reading newspaper reports about the case.

Samuel Stein QC, defending, told Mr Justice John Saunders: “By the time he got back to the prison it was just after the news reports had been broadcast.

“From the response from other prisoners he asked to go into his own cell and to be shut in.

“The doors you can hear through and talk through. He himself was threatened with strangulation, that they are going to ‘get that sick bastard in the showers’.

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“He tried to hold up some paper against the pane in the wall to prevent people seeing him.

“He has spoken to the night watchmen, and that’s meant he hasn’t slept. The level of threat is very serious.

“He is one of very few category A prisoners, and he’s not the largest person and is very vulnerable.

“We asked that some steps be taken to ensure he’s not subject to anymore threats, and to be treated as a witness would be in these circumstances.”