Double-killer who butchered Big Brother star Chanelle Hayes’ mum could be freed at hearing
A DOUBLE-killer who murdered a Big Brother star’s mum could soon walk free from prison.
Chanelle Hayes, now 36, was just five months old when her mother Andrea Sinclair was brutally killed by evil Keith Pollard.
The monster murdered the 32-year-old in his seedy Manchester flat in 1988 – just two years after he was released from prison for stabbing a woman to death.
Now, he’s been granted a personal Parole Board hearing in April – and believes he’ll be freed.
The thought of Pollard being released is something Chanelle, who hit the big time in 2007 as a Victoria Beckham lookalike, has always feared.
A source told The Sun: “Chanelle fears that Pollard will hoodwink the Parole Board by citing the number of courses he has done in prison.
“He will say that these have treated the issues that led to his offending, but she believes that is lies and just a smokescreen.
“She has given a victim statement saying he is still a dangerous man and should stay in prison.
“He is a terrible danger to women.”
This is Pollard’s eighth bid for parole – after his last was rejected in 2022.
In 1972 he was handed a life sentence for the murder of pensioner Violet Thompson.
Pollard was just 18 when he stabbed the woman 70 times after breaking into her home.
In 1986 he was released from prison, but went on to kill Chanelle’s mum two years later.
Her body was so mutilated she had to be identified by a birthmark on her leg.
Chanelle, who had been born in Styal prison in Cheshire, revealed her mum had become a drug user and fallen into the wrong crown.
The Big Brother star said her biological mum then turned to prostitution to fund her addiction.
It was Pollard, one of her clients, who slaughtered her in 1988.
Chanelle explained in 2016: “[Mum] left me and my sisters with a friend and went out.
“She got locked in a flat with a man. She got strangled and had bits of her chopped off and he kept her there for days.”
The monster was convicted of her murder and locked up for a minimum term of 20 years.
He has served an extra 16 years.
They always said I was too young to find out what happened.
Chanelle Hayes
Chanelle once revealed how she forced her adoptive parents, Christine and Harry Hayes, into telling her the horror details of her mum’s death.
She said in 2016: “I always grew up knowing I was adopted…but it was a sugar-coated style of story.”
Chanelle admitted part of the reason she became a rebellious teenager was because she felt she wasn’t told enough about her mum.
The star confesses: “I feel terrible about it. I put them through years of hell. I would run away, I would take vodka into school.
“They always said I was too young to find out what happened. They put up a wall.”
She continued: “I took loads of tablets, self-harm, suicide-like behaviour. I moved out and went to my friend’s house.
“And finally they relented, and my mum came round and she told me everything.
“I completely understand why they wanted to keep that from me.
'Cursed' Celeb Big Brother tragedies
By Hayley Minn
In 2022 The Sun delved into the ‘curse’ of Celebrity Big Brother.
- Rapper Coolio became the latest Celebrity Big Brother star to die in tragic circumstances in 2022. He was in the 2009 series of CBB – with Verne Troyer, who also died in 2018.
- Jade Goody was just 27 years old when she died from cervical cancer on March 22, 2009.
- Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding died from breast cancer in 2021, at the age of 39.
- Dustin Diamond was most famous for playing Screech on 90s TV show Saved By The Bell when he entered the CBB house in 2013. He sadly died at the age of 44 on February 4, 2021.
- Dead or Alive singer Pete Burns died at the age of 57 in 2016, after suffering a “massive cardiac arrest”.
- Heavy D – whose real name was Colin Newell – sadly died on November 25, 2020, due to a heart attack, at the age of 47.
- David Gest sadly died from a stroke in 2016, at the age of 62.
- Keith Chegwin came fourth in the 15th series of CBB. But the telly star died on December 11, 2017, at the age of 60, from a “long-term battle with a progressive lung condition”.
“But at that point I did find out and it did shock me and made me feel sick, it felt like the weight was off of my shoulders.”
A spokesperson for the Parole Board this week said: “An oral hearing has been listed for the parole review of Keith Pollard and is scheduled to take place in April 2024.
“Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.
“A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.
“Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead-up to an oral hearing.
“Evidence from witnesses including probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements are then given at the hearing.
“The prisoner and witnesses are then questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more.
“Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.”
He is currently being held in a Category B closed prison.
In jail, he received treatment for his “perverse sexual interests”, but his last parole hearing said he needed to do more.
A summary stated: “Concerns had been raised about the effectiveness of this work and it was recommended to the panel that Mr Pollard complete further work.”
