Valerie Tallett was Winchester's first murder victim in 38 years. At the city's crown court her killers were found guilty and handed life sentences...

JUST hours before Winchester murder victim Valerie Tallett was killed she made a desperate phone call to her mum and dad and told them she wanted to start a new life.

She wanted to leave the Sussex Street hostel where she had lived in a dingy room and was planning to move to Bournemouth or return to Italy to be a nanny.

Unbeknown to Ron and Sylvia Tallett, that was the last conversation they would have with her.

Yesterday husband and wife Steven Lochead, 31, and Kerry Vincent, 21, were jailed for life for murdering Valerie on the stairwell of the hostel where they all lived.

She was stabbed in the stomach and left to bleed to death in July last year.

Following the jury's verdict it was revealed that Lochead had a string of previous convictions including a seven-year jail term for possession of a firearm, which he used to try to shoot a police officer in Basingstoke in 1993.

His dreadful history, including 22 years as a cannabis smoker, meant that police took no chance with security. For most of the second half of the trial six police officers manned the entrance to the courtroom and the public gallery.

Vincent, who has a two-year-old son and is of extremely low intelligence with an IQ of 69, also has previous convictions but has never spent time in jail before.

In a case of terrible irony, the court heard how she had publicly campaigned against the "undesirables" who lived at the hostel.

A hidden CCTV camera that provided the vital evidence that led to the pair's convictions had also been installed by the city council as a result of her crusade.

Jurors heard how Vincent and Valerie had been drinking at the County Arms pub in Romsey Road on the evening of July 14 last year before a row broke out that resulted in Vincent fighting Valerie's boyfriend Robert Helm.

Within about 30 minutes the two women met back at the hostel. A row ensued and Vincent and Lochead murdered Valerie and then fled to a friend's house, discarding the knife they had used in the stabbing underneath their bed.

Both admitted killing Valerie in police interviews but had denied the murder charge in court.

Amazingly the murder is believed to be the first in Winchester since 1963 during a robbery at Carhart's general store in Lower Brook Street.

The scarcity of murders is easily the lowest of any large town in Hampshire, reflecting its generally placid nature.

In 1981 the police did launch a murder investigation when the battered and strangled body of librarian Mary Bristow, 36, was found in a smoke-logged house in Cathedral View, Highcliffe.

The case came to trial in 1982 but the killer, her former lover Peter Wood, a 29-year-old hod carrier, was acquitted of murder and convicted of manslaughter.

He was sentenced to six years in jail.

Next week will be the first anniversary of Valerie's death and her devastated parents are still struggling to cope with their grief.

Sylvia said: "I wish I could turn back the clock. She was due to come home to us on the day she died but she had rung up and asked us to collect her on the Monday instead. If we had picked her up as planned she would still be here today.

"Sometimes I still talk to myself and say 'I must tell Valerie that,' or I think she will come walking through the door, smiling as she always did, but then I remember that she isn't here any more.

"Every day I look back and wonder if I could have done any more. It hurts more than words can say when I think about her lying at the bottom of the stairs all alone and nobody was there to help her.

"The police said she didn't know anything as it was very quick but I can't help but feel different.

"She got in with the wrong sort of people and she hated that hostel and some of the people who were there. She was anti-drugs and they were being used by some people around her but she was just too independent and she wanted to stand on her own two feet, not sponge off people.

"Valerie was so full of life, always laughing and smiling and living for the moment. She had so many friends and she would do anything for anyone, even if it meant giving her last penny or the shirt off her own back.

"I could write a book about her and it would definitely be a best-seller. She was too nice and too daft for her own good.

"Ron and I will never get over this and we will go to our graves thinking about it."

Recalling the last time he saw her, Ron said: "I drove her home because she had been visiting us and unusually I dropped her at the back of Sussex Street because there were roadworks.

"I can still see her standing there, giving us a wave and saying 'see you next week'.

"The next thing I knew we were being told by the police that Valerie had been murdered.

"I just can't explain how it feels to be told that something like that has happened to your daughter."

Valerie was born and brought up in Basingstoke but moved to Spain at the age of 20 to work as an aupair.

She married Antonio Ver'a but the marriage broke up after three years and she returned to her family home in Morley Avenue, Cranbourne.

In 1990 Valerie moved to Italy and spent some of the happiest years of her life as a nanny.

She moved to Winchester with her boyfriend where she rented a flat in Romsey Road.

The relationship broke up, Valerie was evicted and in desperation accepted the room at the hostel.

Speaking of the fateful night, Sylvia said: "If Valerie thought she was going to be in danger when she returned home she would have run a mile.

"She hated fighting and would have called us to pick her up than put herself in a situation. She obviously didn't know that there were any risks.

"She had told me how she hated Kerry Vincent and I think she was scared of her. Sometimes she would come down from her room above Valerie's and she would be shaking her fists in anger and shouting and swearing and the next minute she would be talking nicely to Valerie and saying hello."

"When we went to visit I often heard Vincent throwing furniture around upstairs in a fit of rage.

"She used to scream at her baby son and when you saw him he would cower into the corner and was very reluctant to come near you."

Ron said: "I don't know why Valerie used to entertain her. I am so bitter about what they did to her that night and I won't feel any better until they are behind bars.

"I blame her move to Winchester.

"It's not the nice place everyone thinks it is and it's been nothing but bad news for my family. If she had never gone there she would still be with us today.

"Her life would not have ended like this."

Sylvia added: "I know it's time to move on now and one of the first things we will be doing is visiting Valerie's grave to tell her the nightmare is finally over. Her killers are behind bars. She can now finally rest in peace."