The officer who led the investigation into Royston murderer Ian Stewart has said that following today’s guilty verdict he will be looking into the death of his first wife as well.

DCI Jerome Kent, of the Beds, Cambs and Herts Major Crime Unit, said it was not a murder investigation, but that ‘it would be quite right’ for him to have a look into the death of Diane Stewart in 2010.

“There was a investigation at the time by the coroner, and a pathologist gave a report finding the death to be of natural causes,” he said.

“I’m going to look again and see that everything that could have been done at the time was done, but after seven years the opportunities are very limited.

“It’s not a murder inquiry but it’d be quite right for me to look at that and see if there’s anything that I’d want to consider.”

Stewart, 56 and originally from Letchworth, murdered his fiancée Helen Bailey at their £1.5 million home in Baldock Road, dumping her body in a cesspit under the garage along with her beloved dachshund Boris.

He was found guilty by a jury at St Albans Crown Court this afternoon, following a seven-week trial.

And DCI Kent, who was involved in the case from very shortly after Stewart reported Helen missing in April 2016, said the killer had been awkward from the very start.

“He was difficult to deal with right from the beginning,” he said.

“Somebody reports their loved one missing, usually they’re quite demanding of the police and want to know what’s going on and help to find their loved one. That’s not what we had with Ian Stewart.

“I just couldn’t find any evidence of her leaving Royston. Not in a taxi, not in a car or a train, nothing. The evidence of her leaving came from him and him alone.”

Asked how he felt when Helen’s body was found, he said: “I was absolutely amazed. I don’t think anybody thought that’s where it’d be.

“What’s interesting in this case is that it was planned. The drugs from the doctor, the constant lies about where she had gone.

“He said in court that he loved Helen Bailey, but he put her in that cesspit, put the dog in that cesspit as well – that’s not the act of a man who loves her.

“If you want evidence as to what his view of that woman was, I think that cesspit is all you need to consider.

“I’ve thought long and hard about the time it took from reporting her missing and finding her in July, but those delays were all down to Ian Stewart and the explanation that he gave and the lies that he told.

“It’s only through very hard and dedicated work by my officers that we managed to see through that web of lies and eventually find Helen.”