A tall but overweight man wearing scruffy clothes lifts up his shirt provocatively and stares gormlessly into the camera as he poses on the balcony of a suburban council block.

At a glance it looks like a cringeworthy picture posted on social media - but the truth is chilling.

The man in this grainy photo is Gary Stretch, a 'nodding dog' follower to one of Britain's most notorious female serial killers - Joanna Dennehy.

Dennehy took the picture in 2013 while she was on the run from the police after butchering three men and just hours before she set off to stab two more innocent victims.

Stretch, formerly known as Gary Richards, was Dennehy's key accomplice and called himself her 'Hubby 4 Lifey' in jail-house love letters.