Final picture of young graduate, 23, and her Polish boyfriend shopping in supermarket just hours before he murdered her with help of his secret lover so they could claim £123,000 life insurance

Rafal Nowak, 31, murdered girlfriend Catherine Wells-Burr, 23, as she slept

His secret lover Anna Lagwinowicz, 32, and her uncle dumped the body in a car before setting it on fire in a plot to secure her life insurance



Victim's parents said the Polish killer would not have been here if Britain had stricter immigration rules

Killer's estranged wife in Poland said his secret lover had 'threatened' her



The parents of a young graduate whose body was found in a burning car spoke last night of their anger that her Polish killer was ever let into Britain.

Catherine Wells-Burr was suffocated by her boyfriend Rafal Nowak who was one of three Poles convicted yesterday of her murder.

Phil and Jayne Wells-Burr said Nowak – who has a conviction for assaulting his wife in Poland – would not have been allowed into the UK if our immigration rules were as strict as those in the US.

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Final photo: Catherine Wells-Burr (left) is caught on camera hand-in-hand with her boyfriend Rafal Nowak in a Tesco supermarket at 7.15pm - just hours before he smothered her to death at the home they shared

Last moments: Catherine Wells-Burr is caught on the Tesco CCTV leaving the Tesco supermarket. Her boyfriend Nowak (walking behind her) was plotting to kill her that night

'Happy couple': Graduate Catherine Wells-Burr, 23, and her boyfriend Rafal Nowak who was today found guilty of her murder

They blamed the European Union and said the UK needed to ‘wake up a bit’ and toughen up. Mrs Wells-Burr, 46, said: ‘There is no screening of people coming into this country.



‘We didn’t know that Rafal had had an assault charge on him while back in Poland. I kind of think this government needs to wake up a bit.’

Murder victim: Catherine Wells-Burr who was murdered by her cheating Polish boyfriend as she slept in their newly-bought home they shared

Mr Wells-Burr, 48, added: ‘That is what we need in this country now.’

Factory worker Nowak killed Miss Wells-Burr, 23, in a plot hatched with his jealous lover Anna Lagwinowicz and her uncle, Tadeusz Dmytryszyn. Nowak, 31, had bought a house with Miss Wells-Burr in Chard, Somerset, but agreed to kill her to profit from a six-figure life insurance policy and gain sole possession of their home.

He suffocated the first class honours graduate from Bath Spa University with a pillow as she slept before her body was driven in her own car to a lay-by near Chard.

After giving Nowak time to get to work to establish an alibi, Lagwinowicz and Dmytryszyn, both of Taunton, set the red Ford Focus on fire with Miss Wells-Burr’s body strapped into the driver’s seat.

Before the murder last September the trio planted a trail of false evidence which suggested the young business analyst had been having an affair.



Fake text messages were exchanged between specially purchased phones and a collection of SIM cards were used to implicate a non-existent ‘secret lover’ in her death.

The killers also created fake profiles for Miss Wells-Burr on adult websites such as Cougar Date to try to portray her as promiscuous.

Real photographs were taken from her own social networking sites and used to illustrate the fake ones, along with pornographic images taken from the internet.

The trio all denied murder but were found guilty after a seven-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.

Guilty: Rafl Nowak (left), his lover Anna Lagwinowicz (centre) and Tadevsz Dmytryszyn (right) stand in the dock today in this court illustration as they are convicted of murdering the British graduate

Killers: Secret lovers Rafal Nowak, 31, (left) and Anna Lagwinowicz, 32, (right) who were today found guilty of murder

Killer: Anna's uncle Tadevsz Dmytryszyn, 38, who helped destroy the body in the Ford Focus Police said Miss Wells-Burr had been caught in a deadly love triangle with an immoral and ruthless couple.

Nowak left behind his wife and son in Poland when he came to Britain in 2008. He then met Lagwinowicz on an internet chat room, and she persuaded him to abandon his family.

Describing the influence Lagwinowicz had over Nowak, his wife Ewelina told the Mail from her home in a village near Gdansk: ‘We had everything – a son, the support of our families and each other, and she made him throw it all away. ‘They met in a stupid internet chat room and she turned him against me. She has insulted me and threatened me. I am frightened for my own safety and the safety of our son.’ Mrs Nowak, who has recently started divorce proceedings, continued: ‘She even sent text messages from Rafal saying that he no longer wanted to see his son. She said he did not care that our son was in hospital. Anna was threatening me verbally on the phone and in text messages. She said my child was worthless. ‘She sent messages from Rafal’s phone saying that he did not want anything to do with his son. I got menacing calls from a man telling me it was over with my husband. It was not a man I knew. I felt in danger and extremely stressed.’ Nowak met Miss Wells-Burr when he started working at Numatic International, which makes the Henry brand of vacuum cleaners. For a while Nowak dated both women before dumping Lagwinowicz to buy the house with Miss Wells-Burr in February last year.

Anger: Catherine Well-Burr's family (from left to right) - her sister Leanne, 21, her mother Jayne, 46, and father Philip, 48. Today the family attacked the Government for allowing Catherine's killer into the country under EU immigration policy

Two months later Nowak was seeing Lagwinowicz again, the pair regularly meeting for sex while Miss Wells-Burr was at work.

Short of money and keen to rid themselves of their victim, they hatched the plan to kill her. Lagwinowicz, 32, still deeply jealous of her love rival, persuaded Dmytryszyn, 38, to join in.

After the guilty verdicts, Mrs Wells-Burr said: ‘Catherine was an inspirational, amazing, caring, kind, intelligent young woman, who had her whole life ahead of her with so much potential.

‘The hatred shown to her has truly shocked us, especially the hatred shown by Rafal Nowak. His betrayal to our family has devastated us. We treated him like a son and family member. We can see no future without our beautiful Catherine. We are heartbroken.

‘No prison sentence will ever be enough. In this country life is not life and we feel it should be.’

The three killers are due to be sentenced on Monday.

Fuel purchase: Anna Lagwinowicz (left) and Tadevsz Dmytryszyn (right) are caught on Morrisons petrol station CCTV in Taunton, Somerset, buying the five litres of petrol that would be used to burn Catherine's body

Caught on camera: CCTV image shows Anna Lagwinowicz (left both photos) and Tadevsz Dmytryszyn (right both photos) as they bought petrol to dispose of the body

Killing: The burnt and wrecked Ford Focus car which Catherine Wells-Burr was found inside hours after she was murdered. Her killers thought they had the perfect alibis

Convicted: Nowak, left, had a large dragon tattoo on his back and was secretly seeing Lagwinowicz (right)



Tattooed: Rafal Nowak was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Catherine Wells-Burr

Killer is 'evil' say graduate's parents who let Pole stay with them after the murder

Killer Rafal Nowak has been branded 'evil' by the parents of the girlfriend he brutally murdered.



Jayne and Phil Wells-Burr said they had treated him like a son and welcomed him into their family.



But he betrayed them in the cruellest way imaginable when he murdered their eldest child Catherine.



Nowak had hatched a plan with his ex-lover Anna Lagwinowicz and her uncle Tadevsz Dmytryszyn to murder Miss Wells-Burr and dispose of her body.



Anger: Catherine's mother Jayne Wells-Burr, 46, reads a statement outside Bristol Crown Court after the three defendants were found guilty of the killing. She is supported by her husband Philip (left) and daughter Leanne (centre)

The twisted trio then tried to shift the blame onto a mystery man whom Miss Wells-Burr was supposedly having an affair with.



But the jury saw through their tissue of lies and convicted Nowak, Lagwinowicz and Dmytryszyn of the Bath Spa University graduate's murder.



Mrs Wells-Burr said: 'We treated Rafal like a son, he was a family member.



'He's scum - he's betrayed us so badly.



'I think Anna and Rafal were both devious, callous, sickening people, they should never be allowed out into society again, they can never be corrected inside prison, they are just too evil.'



Victim: Bath Spa University graduate Catherine Wells-Burr who had just bought a house with her factory worker boyfriend

On the day Miss Wells-Burr died, her mother knew something terrible had happened when she failed to arrive at work as normal.



'When we got to where Catherine lived, I just knew something was desperately wrong and just rang the police straight away,' Mrs Wells-Burr said.



'I just had that feeling - a mother's instinct in your stomach, that something was very, very wrong.'



Mrs Wells-Burr said that as soon as Nowak was arrested she knew he had murdered her daughter - and she told the police that.



'It was just something that Rafal said, a couple of things outside, he said to me that he begged her not to go, which I thought was a strange thing,' she said.



'He said that he had lost his world, that he had lost his future, and I thought, well she's just missing, why would you say that?



'So it didn't make sense, I thought, it's not right.



'My thoughts were that he had done it, and I told the police that.'



Police released Nowak and, despite her reservations, Mrs Wells-Burr let him stay with her family.

'He never spoke about Catherine at all. No tears, nothing,' she said.



The following morning Nowak never mentioned his girlfriend at all - he just spoke of eating a steak dinner.



Mr Wells-Burr added: 'We took him in like a son and he betrayed us all.



'He was there when we went out for the weekend, for Sunday lunch, all of us together, out to the beach, knowing in the back of his mind knowing what he planned to do.



'He knew that Catherine was well loved and liked by many people and he did that.'



Nowak married in Poland in 2000 and had a son, now a teenager.



While in Poland he had a serious car accident after drink driving and had to pay about £6,500 because the insurance would not cover the damage.



In 2007 Nowak moved to Ireland to work in a bakery because he was struggling to get a job in Poland and his marriage was failing.



Before leaving, he was convicted of assaulting his wife.



In May 2008 he moved to London and then in September to Somerset, where he moved in with Lagwinowicz, her boyfriend and Dmytryszyn.



Nowak and Lagwinowicz were living together in Taunton when he met Miss Wells-Burr.

He continued to share with his ex-lover until April 2011 when they moved into separate flats.



Nowak lived with Miss Wells-Burr from the autumn of 2011 and in the spring of the following year they bought the house in Willow Way. Six months later she was dead.