Police hunting fugitive playboy over millionairess’ murder make arrest

From Mail OnLine

Detectives searching for a British businessman wanted in connection with the death of his millionairess girlfriend have arrested a 39-year-old man.

Police have been searching for Ian Griffin since last Tuesday when his girlfriend Kinga Legg was found beaten to death at the Hotel Le Bristol in Paris.

The man was arrested at around 3.30pm today in woodland in Chelford near Macclesfield, Cheshire Police said.

Ian Griffin in a picture he sent to former girlfriend Tracy Baker showing injury he claims was sustained when Kinga Legg hit him during a row. A 39-year-old man has tonight been arrested in connection with the death of Kinga Legg

It is believed the arrested man had been living rough in a tent in the woodland.
Officers were contacted about his location, a spokeswoman for Cheshire Police said.
In a statement the spokeswoman said: ‘Cheshire Police have arrested a 39-year-old man in connection with the French investigation into the death of Kinga Legg in Paris on the May 25.
‘The man was arrested in woodland in the area of Chelford in Macclesfield at 3.30pm today.
‘At this stage it would appear that the man has been living rough in a tent. Cheshire Police are liaising with the French authorities.’
He is currently being held at the East Cheshire custody suite in Middlewich.

The spokeswoman said the man was arrested under Section 9 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The section of the act covers any murder or manslaughter committed outside the UK.

The news comes after revelations that the playboy businessman was attacked by his girlfriend with a stun-gun prior to her death.

An ex-girlfriend of Ian Griffin claimed the tycoon told her that Kinga Legg attacked him with a stun-gun disguised as a lipstick after they had a fight in their Paris hotel room.

Tracy Barker, claimed Griffin had called her following their row in the suite of Paris hotel.

Party-loving Griffin, 39, has been at the centre of an international manhunt since Polish millionairess Ms Legg was found battered to death in the bathroom of their £1,000-a-night suite.

Miss Barker claimed her friend had sounded upset following the row.

‘He said she attacked him with a stun-gun disguised as a lipstick, which she’d brought earlier in the day in Paris,’ she claimed.

‘He said he had cuts all over his arms and bruises all over his legs. That was the last time I spoke with him.’

She also claimed that Mr Griffin often contacted her and seemed concerned that his new partner was too aggressive.

Miss Barker told The Times: ‘He was the target of a lot of violence from her and he really couldn’t cope with it. She was very possessive.

‘He wasn’t sure he could cope with her.’

Lipstick stun-guns can be purchased over the internet for $30U.S.

Just last month he allegedly sent Miss Barker a picture of himself with his face bleeding after he claimed he had been assaulted by Ms Legg.

Within hours of Ms Legg’s death, the former male model raced back to Britain where he ransacked their £3million home before dumping his Porsche and attempting to pick up his 18ft motor launch, Madog.

It was not seaworthy, however, so he picked up a marine satellite navigation system with charts for European waters and vanished again.

Griffin has not been seen since, and police suspect he may have got hold of a different vessel and, after evading an allports alert, is possibly heading for the Mediterranean where Ms Legg’s £ 1.2million yacht Overdraft is moored.

Friends said Griffin suspected that his glamorous lover had been planning a new life without him in France.

Griffin – who ended up bankrupt despite making millions through a chain of tanning salons – only enjoyed a jet-setting lifestyle thanks to his 36-year-old lover’s fortune.

Ms Legg had applied for residency in France following the success of her business exporting tomatoes from Poland for Western European supermarkets.

But Griffin feared he would be barred from settling there as he had previously been accused of fraud by the French authorities.

Friends confirmed the couple – who had reportedly just become engaged – had a stormy relationship and said Ms Legg may have been killed after a fight ‘got out of hand’.

They had been in Monte Carlo for last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix before she checked into the Hotel Bristol in Paris alone on Monday.

He joined her the next day and the couple drank large amounts of champagne before Griffin left in his Porsche 911, leaving a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door to their suite.

Several hours later a maid discovered Ms Legg’s body. She had apparently been punched repeatedly and hit with a lampstand.

French police began a manhunt, but by then Griffin had returned to Britain via the Channel Tunnel, apparently heading first for the mansion the couple were renting in Oxshott, Surrey, which police later said had been ransacked.

Then on Wednesday afternoon he arrived by minicab at nearby Shepperton Marina where he attempted to collect Madog, his £25,000, 18ft motorboat, which had been due to be treated with anti-foul paint so it could be used at sea.

However, sales staff told him the work hadn’t been done, at which he became ‘agitated’.

After offering to buy a cabin cruiser, he instead picked up a marine satnav system which he had previously bought, also paying in cash for an £80 disc containing European charts.

Staff realised later Griffin was a fugitive and contacted police.

At some point he dumped his Porsche close to his parents’ home 200 miles to the north near Warrington in Cheshire. They have been interviewed but insist they have not seen him.

The murdered woman’s firm Vegex grew out of a farmers’ co-operative in the village of Opotawek, near Kalisz. Her death has caused devastation in Poland.

Her father, Jan Wolf, a former mayor, said: ‘Our sorrow is overflowing. My daughter helped create many jobs here and people in the village perhaps do not realise how successful she was.’

In 1995 she met Lancashire council worker Peter Legg when he was sent on a towntwinning exchange. The then-Kinga Wolf moved to Britain and the couple married.

He went on to become a £75,000-a-year executive but they drifted apart, and Ms Legg moved to Cheshire where she plunged into the social scene, quickly making an impression. Friend Rosemary Fadle said: ‘We could see she was out to impress, but not in a pushy way.’

Three years ago she met Griffin, who had lived a colourful life and run a string of businesses. By 2006 he was declared bankrupt.

But with Ms Legg’s money he had resumed his playboy ways, and the couple had leased a £1.2million yacht with a view to her buying it outright.

The 65ft, six-berth Overdraft was yesterday moored at Port Leucate in South-West France after sailing from Minorca and may have been Griffin’s intended ultimate destination when he fled Paris.