Murdered Millionairess Kinga Legg

(L) Eric (C)Kinga (R)Ian
For the wedding of a glamorous, millionairess socialite, it was a surprisingly modest affair, with just a select handful of close friends and family invited to an unassuming 14th Century wooden church deep in the Polish woods.

The bride and groom made an unlikely-looking couple – she was a tall, blonde and stunning Pole; he was a ‘rather ordinary’ British company director 28 years her senior.

But despite obvious differences, friends say they were perfect together.
Eric Kilby and Kinga Legg

However, little more than a year into their marriage, wealthy Kinga Legg left her husband for the younger, flasher, more suave British businessman Ian Griffin – the man now suspected of beating the 36-year-old to death in the £1,000-a-night Paris hotel where they had been staying.

Kinga was still legally married to Eric Kilby, the chief executive of Crown Wallpapers whom she wed in that 2006 ceremony, at the time of her death – but the fact has, until now, remained secret.

It was Mr Kilby whom French police called on the day of Kinga’s death, asking him to fly to Paris to identify his wife’s battered body.

He told friends the experience was ‘absolutely horrendous’, one of the darkest moments of his life.

In another dramatic development last night, a Polish newspaper reported that Kinga was the mother of an unnamed 18-month-old girl – although there was no indication who the father is. Kinga’s family did not deny the report, but refused to make any comment.

Friends have described how Mr Kilby, now 64, has been left shocked and devastated by Kinga’s death. He was said to have been besotted with the businesswoman and was crushed when she left him for Griffin.

Mr Kilby first met Kinga in about 2002, when they were both working for the tycoon Trevor Hemmings – whose interests include Blackpool Tower, Littlewoods Pools and CenterParcs. She was in the marketing department while he was a director of one of Hemmings’ finance companies, as well as running Crown Wallpapers.

He left his wife of 13 years, Rosemary, the mother of his two sons, to be with her, and the couple quickly established themselves on the moneyed Cheshire social circuit, attending black-tie parties together and living in a bijou apartment in a converted Victorian mansion in Wilmslow.
Old wooden church where Kinga Legg and Eric Kilby taken weeding in 2006

Austere: The simple 14th Century woodland church where Kinga Legg and Eric Kilby wed

She became a co-director of two of Mr Kilby’s companies: an agricultural suppliers and a lettings firm, though neither was among Mr Kilby’s more profitable ventures.

He divorced Rosemary, his second wife, in August 2003, within days of Kinga’s divorce from her first husband Peter Legg, and three years later the couple married in the Polish forest.

Last week, the priest who conducted the ceremony confirmed that the wedding had taken place but refused to show The Mail on Sunday the parish register in which the exact date of the marriage would have been recorded, claiming it was a ‘private matter of no interest to outsiders’.

Although the ceremony was held in modest surroundings, the reception was a much more lavish affair, in a nearby mansion known locally as ‘the palace in the woods’.

Fallow deer roam in its 35 acres of parkland and the mansion, whose imposing white facade is protected by four stone lions, overlooks a magnificent lake.

Ewa Bakowska, a journalist on local newspaper 7 Days, said: ‘They made an unusual-looking couple. I saw them at a political fundraising ball just after they got married and it was obvious that he was completely besotted with her.

‘She looked stunning in a daring red dress. He was wearing a rather ordinary business suit and, to be honest, he looked old enough to be her father.’

But their affection seemed genuine. One friend said: ‘Kinga and Eric always appeared the perfect happy couple when they were together.
Big house where Kinga Legg and Eric Kilby lived together before Ian Griffin murdered her.

Luxurious: The modern Polish house which Kinga Legg and Eric Kilby built before they split

‘Their body language was very much that of devoted lovers and partners. Eric is not as tall as Kinga but she never made him feel small. He was proud to be a wealthy businessman with Kinga on his arm and, as a wealthy woman herself, they complemented each other and seemed perfect together.

‘Kinga had shown signs of erratic behaviour when drinking champagne with her previous boyfriend [Cheshire hairdressing and property tycoon Harry Gaynon] and we had all warned her about it. Then she seemed to get a grip and was perfectly well-behaved with Eric.

‘Eric lavished fine gifts and beautiful clothes on her. At a black-tie charity event she wore a Dolce & Gabbana outfit and was voted best-dressed that night. I believe Eric bought her that outfit.

‘They enjoyed the finest things in life together. She loved designer labels and fast cars and Eric gave her anything she wanted. They went to all the best restaurants and were seen at all the top 'Cheshire set' gatherings and parties.’

Mr Kilby was a key player in the business world and has been on the board of no fewer than 41 companies.

Kinga was made a director and shareholder of Mr Kilby’s agricultural services firm Greenlink in June 2008, but resigned in April this year.

She was also a director of his letting company Bollindene, which is des-cribed as ‘dormant’ on Companies House records, between January 2004 and February 2005, but she did not hold any shares in this venture.
Cheshire businessman Ian Griffin

Flash: Ian Griffin with a personal hovercraft sold by his gadget company

‘They seemed set for life with each other,’ one friend said. ‘But two years ago, we were all shocked when Ian Griffin came on the scene. Eric was devastated. He was utterly devoted to her. It was just like a bolt from the blue. Everything changed.

‘We tried to tell Kinga that she should have stuck with Eric who was a perfect gentleman, great company to be with and loved her dearly – but she would have nothing of it. Poor Eric pleaded with her to stay with him but Kinga had done what she always did: target a wealthy man, love him for his money and then move on.’

Another friend of Mr Kilby said: ‘They appeared to be a couple very much in love with one another. But when Ian Griffin came along, Kinga changed. She knew exactly how to get what she wanted from a man. And that was his money.’

Other close friends told how Cardiff-born Mr Kilby was left a broken man when Kinga left him for Griffin, the 40-year-old entrepreneur who drove an orange Lamborghini he claimed was once owned by rock legend Eric Clapton.

Griffin called himself a viscount and claimed to be worth £46million – although ventures, including a spray-tan business and the GadgetMasters internet firm proved failures.

Mr Kilby’s friends said he was so distraught at the break-up that he dramatically lost weight with stress. ‘The weight just fell off him,’ one pal said. ‘We all just felt so sorry for him, He was a charming gentleman.’

Mr Kilby was said to have been reduced to staying in the luxury apartment they once shared, gazing wistfully at photos of himself with Kinga.

Another friend said: ‘He was just absolutely devastated and heartbroken. He couldn’t understand why she had ditched him. He told his friends he would give up absolutely everything for her and he admitted being besotted with her.’

Kinga grew rich by helping to transform the Polish tomato-growing business Vegex that her grand-father founded 50 years ago into an international exporter, supplying well-known chains including Tesco and McDonald’s.

Friends say she persuaded Mr Kilby to invest £1.5million in a Vegex canning operation.

After Kinga’s marriage to Mr Kilby, they built a large mansion in the forest outside the Polish village of Opatowek, where she grew up and where her father, Jan, a former mayor of Opatowek, and mother, Halina, still live in Kinga’s childhood home.

The parents’ home is an uncompromisingly utilitarian property built in Communist times to provide space for extended family with little regard for style or elegance, typical of the homes Polish farmers built in the Fifties and Sixties.

Kinga and Eric Kilby’s marital home is of more modern design and has the trappings of Poland’s new class of seriously wealthy entrepreneurs, including electronic security gates, CCTV cameras, a sweeping drive and spacious garage.

The couple are understood to have sold this property last year, and Kinga was planning an even more ambitious multi-million-pound development in isolated woodland nearby.

Last week, the site was guarded by men with dogs, and visitors were firmly discouraged from coming too close.

Kinga, described by contemporaries as ‘clever, determined and ambitious’, first visited Britain in 1992, just after the fall of communism. She was 19 and clearly attracted by the opportunities she witnessed.

After completing a course in international trade at the University of Central Lancashire, she started working for a British carpet manufacturer, becoming a senior sales representative in Eastern Europe, where her fluency in both Russian and English proved a valuable asset.

In 1995 she settled in Britain, marrying Peter Legg, a senior local government official in Preston, which is twinned with Opatowek.

The marriage lasted just two years, adding weight to local rumours that she may have, in part, seen Mr Legg as a way into the country.

With her family’s consent, Kinga took control of Vegex in 2003 and helped it expand. During the communist era, private businesses were allowed to operate only if they did not threaten the dominance of the state-owned enterprises; but the collapse of communism and Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 allowed the firm to thrive – with Britain a key market.

Vegex sales manager Robert Fibingier explained: ‘The British have very specific demands. They want small tomatoes with a circumference of between 47mm and 67mm [around 2 to 21⁄2in]. In Poland, tomatoes of that size would be considered second-class, but, in Britain, they are the most sought-after type.’

Such is the importance of the tomato crop to the regional economy around Opatowek that Kinga came up with the idea of designating one Saturday each year as ‘Tomato Day’, celebrated with an open-air concert, presentations of prize-winning tom-atoes to civic dignitaries and a parade by children wearing ‘tomato’ necklaces fashioned out of strips of red paper.

Vegex is one of the area’s biggest employers, and Kinga’s family are extremely influential. Several people, including a priest, said they had been ‘instructed’ by the family not to talk to The Mail on Sunday, and our reporter who tried to visit the Vegex plant was immediately ordered off the premises by Kinga’s brother, Marek, who has taken over the running of the business.

But a local Catholic priest, Father Jacek Paczkowski, did speak fondly of Kinga.

He said: ‘Kinga used to come to church when she was over from England, so I saw her from time to time. It was always a pleasure to talk to her. She was charming and had a beautiful smile.

‘Her behaviour was impeccable. She never flaunted her wealth or talked about her business – not when she was mixing with other members of the congregation, anyway.

‘It was shocking to hear of her death and all the more so because of the way in which she was killed.’

As Griffin spends the weekend in custody, awaiting an extradition hearing later this week, Mr Kilby is understood to be staying with Kinga’s parents in Opatowek as they struggle to come to terms with their daughter’s death.

Her father Jan said: ‘It’s difficult at the moment for me to make any comment. The investigation is still going on and we are waiting for its conclusion. The firm will continue to function. All contracts will be honoured and our employees can rest assured that their jobs are safe.’

He added that his daughter’s death had left him ‘a broken man’.

Mr Kilby, meanwhile, declined to comment.