THE devoted partner of a knifeman found hanged after an armed police siege claimed today he had been in fear of attack from violent gangsters.

Dawn Cowcill, 36, said Kevin Kenna had feared retribution from Merseyside criminals, against whom he had given evidence years before and who were due out of prison.

She revealed the couple had been planning to marry, but as Mr Kenna’s worries made him increasingly mentally ill, they had called off the wedding and she had agreed to flee York with him.

They then had an argument, and a day later he was found hanged at their home in Danebury Drive, Acomb.

Dawn said she believed Kevin, 47, had hoped she would find his body as a punishment for the argument.

“He wanted me to find him hanging,” she said.

“We had been good friends for a year before we started going out and he had a good sense of humour.

“We had lived together for five months but he had been a different person in the month before he died and started to use emotional blackmail. But it wasn’t his fault – he was ill.

“I still love him to bits and miss him like mad.”

Dawn spoke out in the wake of an inquest into the death of Mr Kenna, reported in The Press on Saturday, which concluded that armed police who laid siege to the house on September 30, 2006, before eventually breaking in and finding his body, were not to blame for his death.

The jury decided that police officers did everything possible to prevent his death on the information they had available.

After hearing the evidence, Dawn, who had told police how she had seen Mr Kenna holding a knife, said today she agreed with the jury’s verdict.

“I don’t blame the police,” she said. “They didn’t know what he might do to them.”

Police were called to the house after Dawn reported that Mr Kenna had barricaded himself inside and had a knife.

Dawn broke in through a window and Mr Kenna ran upstairs.

The police did not enter the house until more than two hours after they were first called.

The Press reported how, following an investigation managed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, changes had been made to police procedures for future such operations.

The investigation found a check of the National Police Computer had revealed that Mr Kenna had “warning markers” in relation to a history of weapons, violence and suicide, but this was not brought to the attention of the officer in charge of the incident. As a result, he was unaware of Mr Kenna being a suicide risk.

Dawn welcomed the changes, which she said might help prevent someone dying in future if a similar incident happened.