Robbed of a final kiss
LEANNE Bird’s story is almost unimaginably painful.
Her fiance, Connor Upton, the father of her two children, was stabbed outside a Burton nightclub and died hours later in hospital.
Today, for the first time, she tells her story, describing how she was left to tell her heartbroken daughters that their daddy was gone.
“The feeling I felt when I was told the news that Connor was dead was something I will never forget,” she said.
“I kissed him and all I wanted was for him to kiss me back, just one last time, but there was nothing.”
Brave Leanne has broken her silence to help support the Mail’s Safer Burton campaign, which has her full backing and aims to crack down on crime in the town and make it a safer place for all.
‘All I wanted was for him to kiss me one last time, but there was nothing’
“THERE was a chair next to him but I just kind of collapsed on top of him. I remember him being cold and hard.
“I kept wiping his eyebrows, stroking his face and saying ‘I can’t believe you are here’. I told him he looked beautiful and I just couldn’t stop touching him.
“I don’t know why but I was expecting him to squeeze my hand, open his eyes or hear his heartbeat when I had my head on his chest.
“I kissed him and all I wanted was for him to kiss me back, just one last time, but there was nothing.”
Tears stream down Leanne Bird’s cheeks as she recalls the moment she said goodbye to her boyfriend, Connor Upton, after he was stabbed to death outside a Burton nightclub.
The final farewell could hardly have been in starker contrast to the hours the 24-year-old spent with the love of her life on the morning before his death.
The couple were in the pub when he got down on one knee in front of everyone to ask Leanne to marry him.
“I said yes. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I loved him,” said Leanne.
Later that day the couple had an argument on their way home so Connor headed into town while Leanne stayed in with a friend.
Connor texted Leanne saying he loved her and that he wanted to sort things out in the morning.
She said: “I was expecting him to come back to mine after town like he sometimes did when he’d been out, but the bang on my door in the early hours of the morning wasn’t him, it was my mum and his sisters to break the news that he’d been stabbed.
“I didn’t know what to think. I was in a panic, in disbelief and pure shock.
“I was also angry he’d been in Merlin’s because I didn’t like him going there and we used to argue when he did.”
Connor had already been in hospital for a few hours by the time Leanne arrived and he died shortly after she saw him.
“The first thing I saw was the stab wound on his chest. It was only small. I held his hand but I didn’t know what to say. I asked if he was all right but obviously he wasn’t.
“He kept saying ‘I love you’ and ‘tell the girls that daddy loves them’. I felt so helpless.
“I was in the room on my own with him for about five minutes and I remember it being really hot and my head was spinning.
“I gave him a hug and told him I loved him.
“He told the nurses he felt sick and then he started to heave so they lay him on his side to try to make him more comfortable.
“I kept telling him he would be OK.
“I left the room to be sick myself. It wasn’t seeing him like that which made me sick, it was the heat and everything that was going on.”
Leanne went into the visitors’ room but minutes later a doctor came in and said Connor had suffered cardiac arrest and died.
“It was surreal. The feeling when I was told that news was something I will never forget,” she said.
“I remember looking at his mum who’d collapsed on the floor. I couldn’t take it in.
“I went back in to see him and he was just lying there — dead.
“We were not allowed to touch him as he was now evidence but I kissed him. I wanted to lie with him and I didn’t want to leave him. It was traumatic.”
Leanne described the next few days as ‘a bit of blur’ but the tragedy started to sink in when she went to see Connor’s body at Stafford Hospital.
The day after, Leanne heard the news that his killer, George Lawrence, had handed himself in and said all she wanted to do was see him to ask why he had murdered the father of her children.
“I wanted my questions answering. I had so many thoughts going round and round in my head.
“I felt hatred for Lawrence like I have never felt hatred before, but then hatred turned into anger. He had taken my kids’ dad away forever.
“He had kids the same age as Connor but they can still visit him in prison if they want to. We can’t ever see Connor again — that’s the difference.
“When Lawrence was sentenced to life it wasn’t like a sigh of relief — I was still thinking ‘he has murdered my fiance’. I felt empty and numb.
“Although justice had been served it was never going to bring Connor back.”
How do you tell your girls their daddy is dead?
“IT is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do — tell my girls that their daddy had gone to heaven,” says Leanne Bird, reflecting on the impact of fiance Connor Upton’s murder.
Leanne was 19 when she started dating Connor, in August 2007, two months after giving birth to her first daughter, Destynne-Rose, who Connor raised as his own.
A year on, Leanne fell pregnant again and gave birth to Kirstynne in June 2009.
Leanne, of Long Street, Stapenhill, said: “When me and Connor were good we were perfect. We enjoyed going out for meals and on long drives to places where we could spend the day together. We enjoyed doing family things together.
“Connor only had a short time being a father but he was brilliant and the best dad. He had a certain charm about him which would attract kids to him. They loved him.”
Leanne said after Kirstynne was born Connor wanted to settle down.
His life was taken four days after Kirstynne’s first birthday.
She added: “The girls are too young to understand about knives and murder. When they’re older and can understand it, I’ll be there to explain what happened and to answer their questions.
“I tell them their daddy is the brightest star in the sky and we wave at him. I tell them he’s always watching over them.”
Leanne, who has saved a box of Connor’s personal belongings for the girls for when they’re older, as well as newspaper clippings which reported on his death, said every night they looked at his photographs and said ‘sweet dreams’ to him.
“My girls are my rocks. I don’t know what I’d do without them or how I would have got through it. I feel honoured to have such beautiful children — I am so proud of them.
“They put a smile on my face and brighten up my day if I feel sad. It’s such a shame Connor isn’t here to share it with us. I would give anything for him to be here now — we miss him so much.
“I think the girls will feel anger when they’re older. They’re too young to feel the pain and hurt, which could be a good thing.
“They will be angry they haven’t been able to do things with their dad that their friends have.”
You never think it’s going to happen to you, but it can...
LEANNE Bird has bravely opened her heart to the Mail and said she fully supported the newspaper’s Safer Burton campaign.
She says she wants her children to grow up knowing that something positive came from the tragic death of her fiance, their dad.
Leanne said: “I fully back the Mail’s campaign as I know how it feels to lose someone close because of a knife.
“You never think it’s going to happen to you and it’s beyond shocking when it does.
“I think Safer Burton is a fantastic idea to try to prevent anyone having to go through what I and Connor’s family did.
“I want as many people as possible to get on board and support us with it.
“This is something for people of all ages, to improve Burton and its nightlife.
“People don’t necessarily feel scared on a night out here, but more could be done to reassure them.
“I’m glad the Mail is making a stand and doing something about issues which need highlighting.”
Leanne said she felt people needed educating about knife crime and claimed more needed to be done to prevent anyone else’s life being cruelly cut short in the way that Connor’s was.
She said: “I think education is the way forward — not just for children, but for adults as well.
“The man who killed Connor was 46 years old and he should have been setting an example to the youth of today.
“People need to know that it’s wrong to carry a knife and that they will not get away with it if they’re caught with one.”
Brighter future — dreams of a family life and career as a paramedic
SCARRED by the most traumatic experiences she may be, but Leanne Bird is looking positively towards the future, trying as best she can to move on with her life after losing her fiance to the blade of a knife.
The mother of two said she would never forget Connor Upton and there would always be a special place for him in her heart.
However, Leanne said one day she hoped to meet someone else and to have a normal family life.
She told the Mail: “I’m still young and I’d eventually like to meet someone else and find happiness again. It doesn’t mean I will ever forget Connor, but I would like to try to move on one day. I would like a fresh start.”
Leanne, who is currently out of work, said she had recently enrolled on an Open University course to follow her dream of becoming a paramedic.
She said: “I want to have a career and be successful for my children. I think being a paramedic would be such a rewarding job helping others and saving lives. I want to make something of myself to make the lives of my children better.
“My girls are so beautiful, funny and clever — Connor would be so proud and I want to make them proud.”
