I STILL LOVE HIM

MURDERER Rena Salmon, jailed for life on Friday for shooting her love rival to death, has revealed from prison that her husband has already taken another lover.

She also claims cheating Paul Salmon had a string of other affairs during their 18-year marriage.

But despite the torment he has put her through she says she still loves him.

In a series of sensational letters written from her prison cell to her to her half-sister Sabeya Uddin, Rena, 43, says:

She is haunted by nightmares over what she did.

She fears she may never see her son and daughter again.

Paul has already introduced his new lover to their children.

She writes: "He has now introduced the kids to his latest squeeze. A small, blonde, designer-clad woman called Jane - same as Lorna, different name. She even stayed the weekend at my house. Fine, I don't care how many women he has now, just as long as my kids are OK."

Last night Rena was on suicide watch as she began a life sentence in Holloway Prison in North London for murdering her love rival Lorna Stewart, 36, who was two months pregnant.

She admitted to police after blasting Lorna to death at her beauty salon in Chiswick, West London: 'If I had known that (she was pregnant) I wouldn't have shot her.'"

Rena's sister Sabeya, 42, says it wasn't the first time Paul had betrayed her. The pounds 120,000 a year computer consultant confessed to a fling when he returned from a business trip abroad three years ago.

He broke the news to tearful Rena - and promised never to stray again. But then he began an affair Lorna, successful married business woman.

After Lorna was shot Sabeya claims that Paul Salmon sat down with his 12-year-old son Ben and told him: "You know, Lorna isn't the first girlfriend I've had...it isn't the first time I've done this to Mummy."

Sabeya, 42, said yesterday: "It was just typical of the man's arrogance.

"He abandoned his wife, he had broken up his family, he lured his mistress from her own happy marriage, and he thought that he could sit down and boast man-to-man, with his son.

"Ben was no more than a child. A grown-up son might have smacked his father on the nose there and then. Rena told me about the first affair when I was visiting them for the weekend, and we were having a chat. That didn't happen often. We inhabited different worlds by then.

"I was telling her how much I loved her beautiful home, and how I envied her the happiness she had found, and she blurted it out. She said: 'You know, Paul has had an affair'. I was stunned. They seemed perfect. Ideal home, ideal family, ideal life. She wasn't upset then, but she'd been furious at the time. She said Paul had assured her it was just a one-off, it was some woman he met at this business conference staying in the same hotel, and that was it.

"I said: 'And you believe him?' She nodded. I think the main thing on her mind then was to keep her family together."

When she discovered her husband's affair with Lorna Stewart, a beautician who had been her closest friend, she tried to keep Paul once again.

Even after he moved out of their house he came back at least twice and slept with Rena, her sister said. Astonishingly, desperate Rena offered him an open marriage - he could still see Lorna, and stay with her and the children.

But Paul sent her text messages bragging how Lorna, 36, was a superior lover. One said: "She's so much better than you are."

Rena's best friend Leone Griffin, 29, said: "I'd be having a coffee with Rena and her phone would be bleeping. He'd taunt her about her looks and their sex life. She was really upset."

On one occasion, Rena burst into tears after he told her: "Sorry, can't pick up kids. Too busy shagging."

She added: "Lorna was just as abusive and would send messages.

"She used to call her fat, ugly and boring. This, as you can imagine, hurt Rena beyond comprehension."

Tearful Sabeya said Paul had already made up his mind. "He was one arrogant bastard. He had grown tired of her and he wanted to trade her in. He humiliated my sister and broke her heart. He lured Lorna away from her happy marriage."

During the last five years , Rena's tiny 5ft frame ballooned from a size 12 to size 16, partly as a result of pain killers she was taking for chronic back problems. Rena, a former Army corporal, snapped. She set off in her black Mercedes to hunt down Lorna in her salon, then blasted her twice with the shotgun.

An Old Bailey jury rejected her defence that she was acting in shock. As she began her sentence on Friday Rena made a phone call to her half-sister in Burnley, Lancs.

"She was quite calm, but I could tell that she was badly shocked at the verdict," Sabeya said.

"I knew what was going through her mind...what would a lifetime in prison mean? I made her repeat after me: 'I promise on my children's lives that I will not try to harm myself'. "That's our biggest fear now, that Rena will try to end it."

Stunned Rena also called pal Leone, who lived near her in Great Shefford, Berks: "I just can't believe I'm here...tell my kids I love them."

Rena then wept uncontrollably for the rest of the conversation. Leone added: "She's feeling suicidal and is on 24-hour suicide watch."

Rena's children Ben, 12, and sister Jasmin, 11, have been told by relatives about their mother's jail sentence.

They have not seen her since the shooting eight months ago and next month family court officials will assess whether Rena can be allowed visits from them. She told Sabeya in a phone call after the verdict: "I know my children will be frantic to hear from me now, because I'm frantic to speak to them. They will know that their mummy has been given a life in prison. Imagine what that means to a child?"

Sabeya added: "Occasionally Rena manages to call them on their mobile, but Jasmin can only say: 'Oh Mummy, why can't you come home?' Then she bursts into tears. Paul snatches the phone away if he thinks they have talked enough."

But in one conversation, she said, Ben managed to tell her that his father had introduced them to a new woman. He only knew that her name was Jane, and she had an eight-year-old boy and a baby. But Rena says she can't stop loving her cruel husband..

"Paul is my soul - without him in my life I'm just an empty shell," she wrote to Sabeya.

"I can walk, talk, eat, drink, all the things living people do, but inside I'm empty. In some ways I don't ever want to come out of prison.

"Once I got out, I would have to try and make some sort of life without him, and right now I don't think I'm strong enough to do that."

But she admitted she still suffers nightmares and flashbacks to when she blasted her husband's lover to death where she stood.

"Whatever they do to me I suppose I deserve it," she wrote. "But it's the nightmares which are the hardest part of being here.

"I see Lorna all the time. And sometimes I hear her calling my name. She will be with me forever.

"Every night I have nightmares. I see Lorna fall over, I sit holding her hand, telling her help is on the way.

"I asked her if she thought Paul was worth all this pain She said no. I hear Paul laughing and telling me how much better in bed Lorna is compared to me. Then he looks sad and tells me I will always be special to him, that he wants me in his life, that he sees no future with Lorna.

"Then it changes and I'm sitting with Lorna in the garden drinking Pimms with all our kids running and laughing, then there's a loud bang, it's the gun going off and Lorna falls over yet again. Sometimes my dreams are more like a series of memories, all jumbled up. I dream about the kids all the time, I hear their laughter, see their innocent smiles but when I go to hug them, they are always just out of reach."

In another letter she claimed Paul and Lorna Stewart left evidence of their love-making at their holiday home in Dorset.

She told Sabeya: "She put massage bottles all over the bedroom, empty champagne glasses and bottles next to the bed, underwear lying on the floor at our house in Dorset, knowing I was going down there with my kids so I'd see it."

Rena is being consoled in jail by an unlikely new friend - Maxine Carr, one of the co-accused in the Soham case. The two met in the hospital wing of Holloway, where Rena was working as a cleaner.

Sabeya said: "Rena was trying to make cards to send to her children, but she's never been an artist. Maxine overheard her and drew two pictures of children and horses.

"They have become regular mates. We're glad that at least Rena has someone she can confide in."

Rena told the Old Bailey jury that her mother, Mathilda Roberts, abused her as a child. But Mathilda, 63, of Burnley, Lancs, says she wrote a statement denying the allegations, but it wasn't read out in court.

Rena's letters to Sabeya were written when she was waiting to go on trial. Months before Rena and Lorna had been best friends - they would go on shopping trips, pamper themselves at a spa, sit together in their gardens sipping Pimms - until the day Rena discovered Lorna was having an affair with Paul.

She was devastated. Her perfect world suddenly collapsed.

Copyright 2003 MGN LTD
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