More embarrassment for Fergie as new documentary about her killer aide Jane Andrews who murdered her lover with a cricket bat airs forward of TV drama concerning the case

Further embarrassment is in store for Sarah Ferguson this week, following the release of an upcoming documentary detailing the story of her infamous dresser.

Just as it couldn’t seem to get any bleaker for Ferguson following the release of the Epstein files, a Channel 5 documentary – airing on Saturday – will tell how her personal aide and dresser of nine years, Jane Andrews, plunged into depression following her dismissal at the House of York, before murdering her boyfriend.

Andrews, now 57, beat her wealthy partner, Tom Cressman, 39, in bed with a cricket bat before stabbing him with a kitchen knife at their Fulham, West London flat, in 2000.

This year will see the case back in the spotlight, with ITV, together with the makers of The Crown, also set to release a four-part dramatisation of the disturbing events in an upcoming show, The Lady.

The former royal aide murdered her lover in a rage because he refused to marry her and give her the stability she desired, the court heard at the time.

In the documentary, friends and family of the ex-lovers have explained how Andrews, who was at the heart of the palace for nine years, was ‘perfect’ for the Royal Family and ‘thought of herself as a royal’.

‘She was perfect for the Royal Family,’ Lucinda Ellery, a former friend of Jane and Tom’s, said in Crime of Passion? The Trial of Jane Andrews.

In 1997, however, Andrews lost her job at the royal household in a cost-saving exercise. Ellery, who was the first person Jane messaged after committing the murder, testified at the Old Bailey, revealing the impact that losing her job had on Jane.

Ellery said: ‘It had a very big impact, very profound. She was very close to the princesses and missed them. She suffered from depression, and I think she took a lot of Prozac. She lost a lot of hair and weight.’

Also speaking in the documentary, Tom’s older sister Cathy Kerrruish, said: ‘I think she almost thought of herself as a royal.’

Prosecutor Bruce Houlder KC added: ‘I was counsel for the prosecution at the trial of Jane Andrews. Obviously, this was different because of its connection to the Duchess of York.’

‘She’d been responsible for looking after the queen’s grandchildren and had a very high-profile life.’

Andrews was ordered to serve a minimum of 12 years in 2001 after a jury at the Old Bailey accepted the prosecution’s case that she killed Mr Cressman at their Fulham home.

After attacking Mr Cressman, she left him dying as she went on the run, contacting friends on her mobile to pretend she knew nothing of his fate.

The prosecution’s case at her trial was that she flew into a rage after the former stockbroker said he would not marry her and that their two-year relationship was over.

Jurors rejected her claims that Cressman, 39, had raped her and that she woke to find him hitting her, and that in self-defence, she hit him with a cricket bat.

Two years later, the Court of Appeal likewise refused to accept claims that new psychiatric evidence showed she had diminished responsibility after she alleged she was sexually abused as a child.

Andrews was 21 when she replied to an anonymous ad in The Lady magazine for a personal dresser, which turned out to be as a member of Fergie’s personal staff. The job would transform her life.

Andrews started her role at Buckingham Palace in 1988 – the same year the Duchess gave birth to eldest daughter Princess Beatrice.

Responsible for sorting out Fergie’s wardrobe, the former Grimsby College of Art student now found herself rubbing shoulders with royalty.

She dropped her Grimsby accent and became firm friends with Fergie, who, in a good-natured dig at her upmarket transformation, referred to her as ‘Lady Jane’. 

But all that changed in September 2000, after Jane and Tom holidayed in Italy and the French Riviera.

Andrews had expected him to propose to her during the trip, but instead, he told her he had no intention of marrying her.

After returning to the couple’s Fulham flat on September 17, they began to argue heatedly. Cressman called police, warning that ‘Somebody is going to get hurt’, but no officers arrived.

Later that night, while Cressman was sleeping, the court heard, Andrews hit him with a cricket bat and then stabbed him with a knife.

After the bloody attack, Andrews went on the run, sending out diversionary text messages to friends inquiring about her lover’s whereabouts and well-being. 

Following the discovery of the body she claimed to have no involvement in Cressman’s death and stated that he was being blackmailed. Andrews was hunted for days until police in Cornwall found her overdosed in her car.

She survived the suicide attempt and was arrested and charged with Cressman’s murder.

In May 2001, she was convicted of the murder, despite, as senior investigating officer Supt Jim Dickie, put it, trying to ‘destroy’ her lover’s reputation in the course of her defence.

Behind bars, Andrews was reportedly known as ‘Fergie’s bird’ among fellow inmates.

In 2009, she absconded from a Kent open prison and, covered in mud, met her elderly parents in a graveyard in the dead of night. She then contacted a taxi driver who tipped off a newspaper and she was swiftly recaptured.

In 2015, 14 years into her life term, Andrews was released from prison, much to the disgust of Mr Cressman’s family.

Andrews was imprisoned again in 2018 for breaching her licence amid claims she harassed a married man. Police investigated the claims, but took no action.

Between the two prison terms, Andrews made money selling bric-a-brac and Royal memorabilia at a stall inside an antiques centre.

It comes after Ferguson faces backlash after newly released Epstein files revealed she told convicted paedophile Jefferey Epstein that she was waiting for her youngest daughter ‘to come back from a sh***ing weekend’.

The extraordinary exchange is contained in the tranche of three million documents released earlier this month, which also revealed the paedophile helped pay off around $60,000 worth of the former duchess’s debts that she owed to a former assistant.

In the email, sent on March 21, 2010 – two days before Eugenie’s 20th birthday – Epstein asks the then-Duchess of York: ‘NY?’, in an apparent reference to an upcoming New York trip.

Sarah replies: ‘Not sure yet. Just waiting for Eugenie to come back from a sh***ing weekend!!’

Ferguson, who is reportedly about to be made ‘homeless’ after being kicked out of Royal Lodge where she has been living with ex-husband Andrew, has apologised repeatedly for her friendship with Epstein yet the new documents show the paedophile helped pay off around $60,000 worth of debts she owed to a former assistant.

In one email dated April 4, 2009, and signed ‘Love Sarah, the red head!’ she tells Epstein: ‘I am landing in Palm Beach in a couple of hours. Is there any chance on my quick layover that I can get to have a quick cup of tea?’

She goes on to discuss ‘Mother’s Army’, a website Epstein purchased for her, and says: ‘My dear, spectacular and special friend Jeffrey. You are a legend and I am so proud of you.’

The paedophile was still under house arrest when the email was sent.

In July 2009 financier Glenn Dubin, one of Epstein’s close friends, writes to him saying: ‘Fergie said she would organise tea in the Buckingham Palace apts…or Windsor Castle..she said you should call her directly.’

In another exchange in August 2009, Sarah thanked the billionaire ‘for being the brother I have always wished for’.

In 2010, Epstein was invited to Andrew’s 50th birthday party in an email which says: ‘Dear Jeffrey, Beatrice, Eugenie and I would love to invite you to celebrate the 50 years of Papa/Andrew.’

The invitation to drinks and dinner at St James’s Palace in London continued: ‘It will be suits and cocktail dresses, and you know me, mysterious mischief, so bring your presents, your presence and your humour!’

When Andrew’s office hears nothing back from the billionaire they politely send a reminder to which Epstein replies curtly: ‘Not able.’

A source said: ‘Epstein was always falling out with Sarah over money. She would borrow it from him and then say something stupid which would make the papers and infuriate him. He wasn’t that fond of her, she was more of a useful idiot to him. She offered him a way into Andrew’s good graces and, by default, the good graces of the Royals.’

By July 2010, they appeared to have patched things up with Epstein saying an unnamed friend will be in London adding, ‘Any chance of your daughters saying hello?’ to which Sarah replies: ‘Beatrice is in London with her father. Eugenie is away with a cool boyfriend.’

But in March 2011 Epstein was ‘enraged’ after Sarah gave an interview to London’s Evening Standard newspaper calling him a paedophile. He even considered suing her.

He hired Michael Sitrick, a high-powered New York crisis manager who wrote: ‘Jeffrey, the Fergie retraction is critical. One of your good friends, a member of the Royal family, is calling you a paedophile.

‘If gentle persuasion doesn’t work it is my view that we need to turn up the heat to the point of sending her a draft defamation lawsuit. As I said yesterday, this would be a major turning point and be picked up everywhere.

‘This is about your name and your reputation. You really can’t worry about her, in my view you need to worry about you. She certainly isn’t concerned about you or your reputation.’

Just weeks after telling the Standard she would ‘Never have anything to do with Epstein again’, Sarah wrote him a groveling letter in April 2011 in which she called him a ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend’.

She said: ‘I know you feel hellaciously let down by me. And I must humbly apologise to you and your heart for that. You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.’

A spokeswoman for the former duchess said she had been left terrified by Epstein’s threats to sue saying: ‘Like many people she was taken in by his lies.

‘As soon as she was aware of the extent of the allegations against him she not only cut off contact but condemned him publicly to the extent that he then threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with paedophilia.’

The former duchess has previously been contacted for comment by the Daily Mail.

Crime of passion? The Trial of Jane Andrews airs on Saturday February 14 at 9pm on Channel 5.