MURDERER Andrew Rowlands was thrown out of a pub run by the victim's uncle just two hours before committing the killing.

Russell Claydon

MURDERER Andrew Rowlands was thrown out of a pub run by the victim's uncle just two hours before committing the killing.

The stabbing on the corner of East Street in Sudbury on September 26 all stemmed from a row Rowlands had had with a girl.

Both Lewis Watson and Rowlands had been drinking in the Prince of Wales that night. But Duncan Tuhey, landlord of the pub, said his nephew Lewis and his murderer did not exchange words and were only later brought together by a linked young woman.

The 39-year-old, vice-chair of the town's Pubwatch scheme, had thrown Rowlands out of his premises at about 10pm after he began antagonising a young woman in the beer garden.

“There was an argument out in the beer garden between himself and a girl over a coat and she was getting quite agitated and the first thing I did was to tell him to go and he did and there was no issue as far as I was concerned and that was the end of it,” said Mr Tuhey.

But a fuming Rowlands returned to his home on The Croft and got a knife which he then carried back out on to the streets with him.

Mr Tuhey said: “Lewis came in here that night as he was looking for one of his friends. He had a drink and left - they did not leave anywhere near the same time, that is what seems strange to me. The connection seemed to be this girl he had a problem with, obviously they both knew this girl.”

He described Rowlands as drunk in his pub, but not so much so that he was swaying and said he was not aggressive when being asked to leave.

Mr Tuhey believes “placid” Lewis, who had not seemed drunk that night, was the victim of trying to protect the girl from being attacked.

After the incident, on Cavendish Way just after midnight, Rowlands was described as appearing calm as he walked into a kebab shop on Gaol Lane and ordered a pizza. Witnesses have then described him walking outside the takeaway, asking a retained firefighter to borrow his mobile phone and calling the police to turn himself in.

He was arrested in Gaol Lane shortly afterwards. Onlookers said he had a cut trickling with blood just below his eye.