Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Serial Killer Documentary - Mick Philpott

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Serial Killer Documentary - Mick Philpott · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:07
Speaker 1: On Friday 11th May 2012, a fire ripped through a
0:12
Speaker 1: family home in Derby in the East Midlands. Trapped inside
0:17
Speaker 1: and fast asleep were six young children.
0:21
Speaker 2: The fire brigade were in the house, flashing lights everywhere.
0:24
Speaker 2: I pushed to the front of the house and I
0:27
Speaker 2: could see the firefighters bringing the children out. Some in blankets.
0:32
Speaker 2: And the ambulance were trying to resuscitate some of them.
0:38
Speaker 1: Firefighters and paramedics battled in vain to save their lives.
0:42
Speaker 1: All six children died. The youngest was just five years old.
0:47
Speaker 3: The damage to the house is drastic, and there is
0:51
Speaker 3: no way that those poor six children could possibly have escaped.
0:56
Speaker 3: Smoke inhalation alone would have been deadly.
1:00
Speaker 4: But this was no accident.
1:02
Speaker 1: As Mick Philpott, the children's father, wept in front of
1:05
Speaker 1: the British public, he was hiding a sinister secret.
1:09
Speaker 4: He had deliberately started the fire.
1:12
Speaker 5: I think that the most tragic part of this case
1:15
Speaker 5: is the fact that six children's lives were lost in
1:18
Speaker 5: Mick Philpott's attempts to basically rescue his own ego.
1:24
Speaker 1: Nick Philpott had set out to look like a hero,
1:27
Speaker 1: but he'd ended up as one of the world's most
1:29
Speaker 1: evil killers.
1:56
Speaker 4: As news broke.
1:57
Speaker 1: Across Britain in May 2012 that six young children had
2:01
Speaker 1: died inside a burning family home on Victory Road in
2:05
Speaker 1: Allent and Derby, the entire.
2:07
Speaker 4: Nation were in shock.
2:10
Speaker 1: The parents, 56-year-old Mick Philpott and his wife, 31-year-old Miraid,
2:15
Speaker 1: were unharmed but completely heartbroken. Their five sons and one daughter,
2:21
Speaker 1: aged between 5 and 13 years old, were dead. Former
2:25
Speaker 1: neighbour to the Philpott's, Daniel Stevenson, witnessed the horrific event.
2:31
Speaker 2: My brother woke me up, and that's when I looked
2:34
Speaker 2: out the window, seeing thick black smoke coming from the house.
2:39
Speaker 2: I got out of bed, got dressed, pyjamas on, trainers,
2:42
Speaker 2: ran out the door, went straight to the property. Just
2:45
Speaker 2: wanted help, so there was no way of getting in
2:48
Speaker 2: through the front, so I went round the back, climbed
2:50
Speaker 2: over the caravan, dropped down the other side, got into
2:53
Speaker 2: the back garden. And I see Mick and Marie there,
2:56
Speaker 2: just crying, screaming, shouting.
3:00
Speaker 1: Despite brave attempts from the emergency services, nobody could get inside.
3:05
Speaker 4: The fire was just too ferocious.
3:08
Speaker 2: Fire coming out of the letterbox, fire coming from around
3:10
Speaker 2: the sides of the doors.
3:13
Speaker 1: By the time it was safe to enter the house,
3:15
Speaker 1: it was too late. Five of the children, 10-year-old Jade
3:20
Speaker 1: and her brothers John, Jack, Jesse, and Jayden, had all
3:24
Speaker 1: lost their lives. 13-year-old Duane died later at hospital. However,
3:31
Speaker 1: it wasn't a tragic accident. Unbelievably, the house fire was
3:36
Speaker 1: part of a deliberate plan. Mick Philpott had masterminded everything
3:41
Speaker 1: for his own benefit.
3:43
Speaker 5: I think that Mick Philpott did an incredibly evil and
3:46
Speaker 5: an incredibly selfish thing. He was essentially looking to get
3:50
Speaker 5: revenge for a perceived wrong against him by a woman
3:53
Speaker 5: who he thought was under his control.
3:57
Speaker 1: His story begins over 60 years ago. Mick Philpott was
4:04
Speaker 1: born in 1956. He grew up in Derby as part
4:09
Speaker 1: of a large Roman Catholic family.
4:11
Speaker 5: It would have been an environment in which His parents'
4:14
Speaker 5: attention was diluted across many children, so he wouldn't have
4:18
Speaker 5: been the center of attention by any means. And we
4:21
Speaker 5: know that his mother worked very hard. She had a
4:24
Speaker 5: job at a factory that she only retired from when
4:27
Speaker 5: she was quite old. So he didn't appear to come
4:31
Speaker 5: from an unusual background by any means.
4:35
Speaker 1: In 1975, aged 19, Philpott joined the army. He began
4:40
Speaker 1: to show signs of a violent temper, especially towards his girlfriends.
4:44
Speaker 1: It would repeatedly land him in trouble. Local journalist Martin
4:49
Speaker 1: Naylor recalls the events that led to Philpott being arrested
4:52
Speaker 1: in 1978.
4:55
Speaker 6: When Mick was a youngster, I think 19 or 20,
4:58
Speaker 6: maybe 21, he ended up with a conviction for attempted murder,
5:02
Speaker 6: for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
5:04
Speaker 6: The story with that is that he had a girlfriend
5:07
Speaker 6: back in Derby. He was stationed wherever his regiment were.
5:11
Speaker 6: She'd had the temerity to sending a Dear John letter
5:14
Speaker 6: ending their relationship, so he decided to go AWOL from
5:18
Speaker 6: the army, rock up at her house in Derby and
5:22
Speaker 6: attack her with a knife. And then when her mother died,
5:24
Speaker 6: tried to intervene, he attacked the mother too.
5:26
Speaker 1: Despite his seven-year sentence for attempted murder and grievous bodily harm,
5:32
Speaker 1: Philpott served just over three years. He was released in 1981.
5:38
Speaker 3: From that point onwards, Philpott set about controlling every woman
5:43
Speaker 3: he had any contact with and to do so in
5:46
Speaker 3: the most outrageous way.
5:48
Speaker 1: Those who knew Philpott were surprised to hear just how
5:52
Speaker 1: violent his past had been.
5:55
Speaker 2: I know Mick can handle himself, so, like, if anyone
6:00
Speaker 2: was intimidating towards him, he wasn't afraid to pump his
6:04
Speaker 2: chest and stand up to them and so forth, so
6:07
Speaker 2: I know he had quite a strong, like, reaction when
6:11
Speaker 2: people kind of pushed him.
6:14
Speaker 7: The bit that shocked me was.
6:16
Speaker 2: I didn't know that he tried to kill his ex-partner.
6:20
Speaker 1: After his release from prison, Philpott had a series of
6:23
Speaker 1: volatile relationships. In 1986, at the age of 30, he
6:28
Speaker 1: got married for the first time and fathered two sons
6:32
Speaker 1: and a daughter. He later had two more children with
6:35
Speaker 1: a teenage girlfriend and began to have several relationships simultaneously.
6:41
Speaker 1: By the time he was 50, Philpott had fathered a
6:44
Speaker 1: total of 17 children.
6:47
Speaker 8: I think he would have gone for any woman to
6:48
Speaker 8: go for him. But, but in his case, he went
6:51
Speaker 8: for younger girls, usually girls who were very upset and
6:55
Speaker 8: down and depressed, either because they came out of a
6:58
Speaker 8: bad relationship or they were mistreated by their parents. Um,
7:01
Speaker 8: girls that had no self-esteem, you can pick them out
7:04
Speaker 8: of a crowd. You know, they, they think they're, they're ugly.
7:07
Speaker 8: They think that they're inadequate. They think that they cannot
7:09
Speaker 8: have a boyfriend that everybody hates and that the world
7:12
Speaker 8: hates them. They, All they need is a little bit
7:15
Speaker 8: of love, is somebody to be there and show them
7:19
Speaker 8: that they are beautiful, that they matter, that they are somebody.
7:22
Speaker 8: And he knew how to do that. He would approach
7:25
Speaker 8: the girls that were like in the lowest they could be,
7:28
Speaker 8: and he would be that person.
7:29
Speaker 3: In 2000, he met Marie Duffy, a 19-year-old single mother.
7:34
Speaker 3: But within a year, he'd met a 16-year-old who became
7:38
Speaker 3: another of his conquests.
7:41
Speaker 7: She, too, was a single mother. At 16.
7:44
Speaker 3: In 2003, Philpott marries Marie Duffy, but keeps his full-time
7:51
Speaker 3: live-in mistress. In fact, she is the bridesmaid at the
7:56
Speaker 3: marriage to Marie Duffy. It becomes a ménage à trois,
8:01
Speaker 3: both bearing his children, living in a council house in Allenton,
8:05
Speaker 3: near Derby. They are, well, one could only describe it
8:09
Speaker 3: as extraordinary.
8:11
Speaker 5: Mick Philpott was a man who was incredibly manipulative, incredibly controlling,
8:16
Speaker 5: and had managed to basically convince these two women over
8:19
Speaker 5: a course of several years that this was, you know,
8:22
Speaker 5: a really good thing, that actually they were lucky to
8:24
Speaker 5: have some of his attention.
8:26
Speaker 1: In 2006, 50-year-old Mick Philpott was unemployed and living on
8:32
Speaker 1: benefits in a council house with his wife, Mireille, his mistress, Lisa,
8:37
Speaker 1: and their ever-growing, far from traditional family.
8:41
Speaker 6: He had approached us as the Telegraph to say that
8:44
Speaker 6: he was living in the house with his wife and
8:46
Speaker 6: his then-girlfriend. They had children together, there were lots of
8:51
Speaker 6: them there, and he wanted a bigger council house. So
8:53
Speaker 6: we thought that by coming to his local newspaper, he
8:55
Speaker 6: would get a bigger council house.
8:57
Speaker 7: So we ran the story.
8:59
Speaker 6: The following day, it was picked up on by all
9:01
Speaker 6: the Nationals, especially some of the more right-leaning ones, as
9:04
Speaker 6: you'd imagine. One of them, I think one of the tabloids,
9:07
Speaker 6: dubbed him Shameless Mick, and the kind of the media
9:10
Speaker 6: frenzy rollercoaster went.
9:12
Speaker 7: On from there.
9:14
Speaker 1: In 2007, Philpott appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show to
9:18
Speaker 1: talk about his large family and his lifestyle. He began
9:22
Speaker 1: to draw attention from the general public.
9:25
Speaker 3: He becomes quite famous as a benefits scrounger because he
9:31
Speaker 3: significantly never has a job and is claiming at one
9:35
Speaker 3: point 60,000 a year in benefits as well as being given.
9:38
Speaker 4: A house and.
9:40
Speaker 3: He parks a caravan, effectively, at the side of the
9:43
Speaker 3: semi-detached council house he's living in, in which he alternates.
9:48
Speaker 3: He sleeps there one night with the wife, Murray Duffy,
9:51
Speaker 3: and the next night with his mistress, as though he's
9:53
Speaker 3: some kind of emperor.
9:55
Speaker 5: I think that Mick Philpott breathes the oxygen of publicity.
9:59
Speaker 7: I think he.
10:00
Speaker 5: absolutely regales in being the centre of attention. He loves
10:03
Speaker 5: being talked about. And I don't think the nature of
10:06
Speaker 5: attention matters very much to him. It doesn't matter if
10:09
Speaker 5: it's positive attention or negative attention as long as people
10:12
Speaker 5: are talking about him.
10:14
Speaker 1: Philpott enjoyed his newfound fame and went on to appear
10:18
Speaker 1: in other television programmes.
10:21
Speaker 5: He then participated in a programme about benefits culture with
10:24
Speaker 5: the MP Anne Widdicombe. And he would have been absolutely
10:27
Speaker 5: loving the attention. He was basically having his malevolent ego
10:32
Speaker 5: fed from every angle here. But what he really didn't
10:35
Speaker 5: care about was the impact that this had on his family.
10:38
Speaker 5: His kids were bullied at school because of the attention.
10:41
Speaker 5: that they got through him being in the press. His
10:45
Speaker 5: partner and his wife were basically labeled as stupid and ignorant,
10:50
Speaker 5: but that didn't matter. As long as people were talking
10:52
Speaker 5: about him, that's all that he cared about.
10:54
Speaker 3: I wish I found it comical. I found it despicable.
10:57
Speaker 3: There is nothing about it that I find admirable. Philpott
11:00
Speaker 3: saw himself as some kind of grand figure, effectively bragging
11:05
Speaker 3: about his success with women, his success scrounging on the benefits.
11:10
Speaker 5: Mick Philpott is somebody who has to be in control.
11:13
Speaker 5: He has always got to be the one making the decisions,
11:16
Speaker 5: and other people basically have to pander to his every whim.
11:20
Speaker 1: Philpott's wife and mistress both worked as part-time cleaners.
11:25
Speaker 5: But far from being a source of their own income
11:27
Speaker 5: and a source of independence for them, he would basically
11:30
Speaker 5: take all of their wages. He would be the one
11:33
Speaker 5: who drove them to work, dropped them off and picked
11:35
Speaker 5: them up. He wanted to be fully in control of
11:39
Speaker 5: these women's lives. They didn't even have their own house keys.
11:42
Speaker 1: In 2012, 56-year-old Mick Philpott was living with his wife,
11:47
Speaker 1: his mistress and their 11 children in a council house
11:51
Speaker 1: in Derbyshire. By now, Philpott was known nationally as a
11:55
Speaker 1: benefit scrounger. But little was known about his controlling behaviour,
12:00
Speaker 1: his volatile temper... and his obsession with sex that included
12:05
Speaker 1: regular threesomes with his wife, Mireille, and a friend, Paul Mosley.
12:11
Speaker 8: There were like 11 kids in the house, a small house,
12:15
Speaker 8: two sexual partners, and he used to bring a friend
12:18
Speaker 8: for sex parties and stuff. It's a horrible environment with
12:22
Speaker 8: the kids in the house and stuff, and you're doing
12:24
Speaker 8: all this. So it doesn't take an expert to realize, okay,
12:27
Speaker 8: this is not a good situation.
12:30
Speaker 1: And these sexual exploits of Mick and Miread didn't stop
12:33
Speaker 1: at home.
12:35
Speaker 6: There was an incident where they went out dogging in
12:37
Speaker 6: Alastair Park. Now, people who live in Derby and know
12:40
Speaker 6: Derby know that Alastair is a relatively affluent area, and
12:43
Speaker 6: to hear that people have been going there to watch
12:47
Speaker 6: other people having sex in cars sort of comes across
12:50
Speaker 6: as quite a shock.
12:51
Speaker 7: And so it was seedy.
12:55
Speaker 1: In February 2012, Philpott's mistress, Lisa, decided she'd had enough
13:00
Speaker 1: of life in the dysfunctional household. She moved out with
13:04
Speaker 1: her five children and demanded custody.
13:08
Speaker 8: A lot of people won't have that courage, She just decided, look,
13:12
Speaker 8: enough is enough. She did the right thing. She didn't
13:14
Speaker 8: go up to him and say, I'm leaving you, because
13:15
Speaker 8: I think if she tried doing that, he would overpower her,
13:18
Speaker 8: because he was a violent person, and say, no, you're
13:20
Speaker 8: not leaving, or maybe lock her in. He would have
13:23
Speaker 8: done something. But she did the right thing. She walked
13:26
Speaker 8: away first and then sent him a message and said,
13:28
Speaker 8: I'm gone, you know, and then he couldn't find her anymore.
13:32
Speaker 5: This was a point at which Lisa had decided to
13:34
Speaker 5: take control, to take her children and to go to
13:37
Speaker 5: a women's refuge. And the key thing here is that
13:40
Speaker 5: Mick hadn't decided that that was okay. He was the
13:44
Speaker 5: one that decided when relationships were over. He was the
13:46
Speaker 5: one that decided what happened on a daily basis. So
13:49
Speaker 5: the fact that Lisa had betrayed him by taking that
13:52
Speaker 5: power away from him, it was only going to result
13:55
Speaker 5: in something really alarming in return.
13:58
Speaker 1: Lisa moving out left financial implications for Philpott. Not only
14:03
Speaker 1: did he lose her income as a cleaner, but also
14:06
Speaker 1: the benefits he received for their children. The custody hearing
14:10
Speaker 1: was set for May 11th. Philpott concocted a plan to
14:14
Speaker 1: ensure that children would be returned to Victory Road.
14:19
Speaker 3: Out of the vanity and arrogance of the man, together
14:23
Speaker 3: with his wife, my aide, and Paul Mosley, the kind
14:26
Speaker 3: of live-in, sometime lover, they hatch a scheme to set
14:31
Speaker 3: fire to the house in Victory Road in an effort
14:34
Speaker 3: to provoke the council to resign. give him a bigger house,
14:38
Speaker 3: but also to blame his mistress. She will not get
14:43
Speaker 3: the custody of the children. It is an extraordinary, bizarre plan.
14:49
Speaker 5: I think Mairead was very much under Mick Philpott's control
14:52
Speaker 5: at this point in time. I think he would have
14:55
Speaker 5: quite easily have talked her around into actually being a
14:59
Speaker 5: part of this.
15:00
Speaker 8: It was a badly devised plan. To me, what convinced
15:03
Speaker 8: him is his own stupidity. He was self-absorbed. He thought
15:06
Speaker 8: that he was the king. You know, he got all
15:09
Speaker 8: the girls he wanted, and he could control them and everything.
15:12
Speaker 8: And maybe Philpott thought that he was that intelligent, that
15:16
Speaker 8: it was that easy to devise a plan that he
15:18
Speaker 8: could get back on the girl. So he probably sat down,
15:22
Speaker 8: wrote down the plan very quickly. This is what we're
15:24
Speaker 8: going to do, right?
15:26
Speaker 4: Very easy.
15:27
Speaker 1: In the early hours of Friday, May the 11th, 2012,
15:31
Speaker 1: the same day as the scheduled custody hearing, Philpott, aided
15:35
Speaker 1: by his wife, Mireille, and their friend, Paul Mosley, poured
15:39
Speaker 1: petrol through the letterbox and set the family home alight.
15:44
Speaker 1: Six of Philpott's children were sleeping upstairs.
15:48
Speaker 3: The fire that he set, that they have set between them,
15:51
Speaker 3: takes hold at a pace far greater than they could
15:55
Speaker 3: possibly have conceived. and the house is literally filled with
15:59
Speaker 3: smoke in a matter of instants. In his typically vainglorious way,
16:05
Speaker 3: Philpott makes a particularly appalling 999 call, saying, my children
16:11
Speaker 3: are inside.
16:13
Speaker 2: They was on the phone to the emergency services, I believe,
16:18
Speaker 2: and they was saying, like, my house is on fire,
16:21
Speaker 2: and it was like, my baby, my baby, and obviously
16:24
Speaker 2: they told, The emergency service, my neighbours here, it was very, like,
16:29
Speaker 2: misty because everything's just happening so fast. I attempted to
16:32
Speaker 2: go into the house. I got as far as the kitchen,
16:35
Speaker 2: couldn't go any further. The smoke was just too thick.
16:38
Speaker 2: It was choking, black. I couldn't see anything, so I
16:40
Speaker 2: had to come back out. There was ladders at the
16:43
Speaker 2: side going up to a window. I tried climbing up
16:46
Speaker 2: to there and there was a ratchet in the window
16:48
Speaker 2: where Mick's been trying to smash in, I think, and
16:51
Speaker 2: there was smoke coming from that window. I then came
16:54
Speaker 2: back down the ladders and I climbed up onto a
16:57
Speaker 2: wooden frame, what he's been building onto his conservatory.
17:01
Speaker 3: The damage to the house is drastic and there is
17:04
Speaker 3: no way that those poor six children could possibly have escaped.
17:10
Speaker 3: Smoke inhalation alone would have been deadly.
17:13
Speaker 2: I climbed up to the window to see if any
17:15
Speaker 2: windows were open. None of them were open. Then I
17:17
Speaker 2: put one of the windows through with a wrench from
17:20
Speaker 2: the other window. I chucked out the window and it
17:22
Speaker 2: smashed straight through. I then continued putting the window through
17:25
Speaker 2: with the pickaxe on the roof, smashing all the window up.
17:29
Speaker 2: I was about to climb into the property. Again, couldn't
17:32
Speaker 2: see nothing, couldn't hear nothing, and hear no screams.
17:36
Speaker 1: When the fire service arrived, the desperate attempts to save
17:40
Speaker 1: the children continued. The local press soon got wind of
17:44
Speaker 1: the unfolding drama on Victory Road.
17:47
Speaker 6: I was on the early shift on the morning of
17:49
Speaker 6: the fire, and I could hear that the news desk
17:51
Speaker 6: phone was ringing, so... I made a bit of a
17:54
Speaker 6: dash for it. I grabbed the phone and it was
17:57
Speaker 6: the on-duty police press officer. And she said to me,
18:00
Speaker 6: we're just letting the local media know early that there's
18:03
Speaker 6: been a really big house fire in Allentown and five
18:06
Speaker 6: kids are dead. Within about five or ten minutes of
18:11
Speaker 6: knowing that it was in Victory Road, I phoned the
18:14
Speaker 6: local news agent who I'd known because I'd done previous
18:16
Speaker 6: stories with him. He answered the phone and I said,
18:19
Speaker 6: Joe Guritz-Martin from The Telegraph. and he said, it's Mick Philpott,
18:23
Speaker 6: it's Mick Philpott's house.
18:25
Speaker 7: And I didn't even have to ask him what it
18:27
Speaker 7: was about. He knew, and he blurted that out straight away.
18:31
Speaker 1: Shocked neighbors began to spill out onto the street as
18:34
Speaker 1: the full horror of the tragedy became apparent.
18:38
Speaker 2: I think nearly the whole street was out in the front.
18:41
Speaker 2: The fire brigade were in the house, flashing lights everywhere.
18:44
Speaker 2: I pushed to the front of the house, and I
18:48
Speaker 2: could see the firefighters bring in the children out, some
18:54
Speaker 2: in blankets. I think they used the blankets to try
18:57
Speaker 2: and protect some of it.
18:57
Speaker 4: A bit more.
19:04
Speaker 2: And the ambulance were trying to resuscitate some of them.
19:12
Speaker 2: I was just hoping that the kids would survive and recover.
19:18
Speaker 2: I just didn't really know what to think at the time.
19:22
Speaker 2: Didn't know what had happened. Didn't know what caused the fire.
19:25
Speaker 2: I just didn't know anything.
19:28
Speaker 1: Tragically, five of Philpott's children died at the scene, 10-year-old Jade,
19:33
Speaker 1: 9-year-old John, 8-year-old Jack, 6-year-old Jesse, and Jayden, who was
19:39
Speaker 1: just 5 years old. Their older brother, 13-year-old Duane, was
19:44
Speaker 1: rushed to hospital in a critical condition but would later
19:47
Speaker 1: succumb to his injuries.
19:52
Speaker 3: It almost defies self-deception.
19:55
Speaker 4: It is disgraceful.
19:58
Speaker 3: But at the outset, the police believe that this is
20:01
Speaker 3: something that has genuinely a tragedy. Six children, no adults
20:06
Speaker 3: in the house. You might ask, why weren't there any
20:08
Speaker 3: adults in the house?
20:10
Speaker 1: Forensic experts arrived at the scene and began to look
20:14
Speaker 1: for clues to determine the source of the fire. Daniel
20:17
Speaker 1: Matthews was part of the team.
20:20
Speaker 9: Mostly the house was pretty much undamaged. The roof was intact,
20:24
Speaker 9: the walls were intact. The front door was noticeably more
20:28
Speaker 9: damaged than anywhere else. And also the window on the landing,
20:32
Speaker 9: there's a small window on the landing upstairs that had
20:34
Speaker 9: been damaged by the fire and had dropped out. But
20:37
Speaker 9: apart from that, the only way you could really tell
20:39
Speaker 9: there was a fire at the house was by small
20:41
Speaker 9: signs of some soot coming out from the vents at
20:43
Speaker 9: the top of some of the double-glazed windows. The fire
20:46
Speaker 9: had started in the entrance hallway behind the front door.
20:49
Speaker 9: And from there, it had spread a little bit into
20:51
Speaker 9: the living room, but mostly it had spread up the stairs.
20:54
Speaker 9: The window at the very top of the stairs was
20:56
Speaker 9: open a little bit, and that had been breached by
20:58
Speaker 9: the fire. Now, obviously, fire tends to go up and out, so... Effectively,
21:03
Speaker 9: the stairwell from a fire in there would act almost
21:05
Speaker 9: like a chimney. The fire and the hot gases and
21:08
Speaker 9: the fumes would mostly go upstairs.
21:10
Speaker 1: In cooperation with the fire investigators, the forensic team needed
21:14
Speaker 1: to find out if the blaze was accidental or if
21:17
Speaker 1: someone had started it on purpose.
21:20
Speaker 9: We had an arson dog handler with us that day.
21:22
Speaker 9: That dog is trained to indicate on various different ignitable
21:25
Speaker 9: liquids such as petrol, diesel, white spirits and the things
21:28
Speaker 9: that we commonly see in arsons. and the dog clearly
21:33
Speaker 9: indicated that he thought something was present. So we would
21:37
Speaker 9: take a sample from that area, and then it would
21:39
Speaker 9: be sent for analysis, and the analysis determined that petrol
21:42
Speaker 9: was there. When I completed my scene examination, I was
21:45
Speaker 9: able to say that the fire had been started deliberately.
21:50
Speaker 1: As the sun rose on the morning of Friday, May 11th, 2012,
21:54
Speaker 1: the true horror of the house fire on Victory Road
21:58
Speaker 1: in Derby became apparent. Investigations had revealed that the blaze
22:03
Speaker 1: which had killed six children had been started deliberately. Bereaved father,
22:09
Speaker 1: Mick Philpot, had seemingly made desperate attempts to save them.
22:14
Speaker 1: But in reality, he had orchestrated the whole thing to
22:18
Speaker 1: try and win custody of five of his other children
22:22
Speaker 1: from his former mistress.
22:24
Speaker 8: I think Philpott thought that nobody would ever leave him
22:27
Speaker 8: because he was so amazing. So I think it was
22:29
Speaker 8: a combination of everything. When somebody leaves you, there's another
22:34
Speaker 8: thing that happens with the human brain. It's like jealousy
22:37
Speaker 8: automatically happens, right? For one reason, we are all... And
22:44
Speaker 8: in Philpott's case even more, because he was so self-absorbed,
22:47
Speaker 8: you think you are the best thing on earth.
22:49
Speaker 5: Mick Philpott's plan was essentially to exact revenge on Lisa.
22:54
Speaker 5: He'd moved from trying to control her by keeping her
22:57
Speaker 5: in a relationship with him to trying to destroy her
23:00
Speaker 5: for leaving it. He was vile towards her. He made
23:04
Speaker 5: threats towards her through other people. She was incredibly frightened.
23:08
Speaker 5: And what he was trying to do was essentially create
23:11
Speaker 5: a story, create a set of events that he could
23:14
Speaker 5: blame her for.
23:15
Speaker 8: I think what convinced him that this thing would work
23:17
Speaker 8: was himself, you know, his stupidity and his self-absorption. He thought,
23:22
Speaker 8: I'm too good, this plan is infallible.
23:26
Speaker 1: On Saturday, the 12th of May, the day after the fire,
23:30
Speaker 1: Philpott's ex-mistress Lisa and her brother-in-law were arrested on suspicion
23:35
Speaker 1: of starting the blaze. it seemed that Philpott's plan to
23:39
Speaker 1: frame her was working out, but they were soon released
23:43
Speaker 1: without charge.
23:46
Speaker 4: Police were treating the.
23:47
Speaker 1: Deliberate fire as a murder investigation after it was confirmed
23:51
Speaker 1: that petrol had been found inside the letterbox.
23:55
Speaker 3: The police start to talk to the neighbors, who point
23:58
Speaker 3: out that Philpott is this conceited pig of a man,
24:02
Speaker 3: and they begin to put together what actually happened. They
24:07
Speaker 3: find evidence of a petrol can. They find a glove.
24:12
Speaker 1: Detectives began to grow suspicious of the Philpotts and their
24:16
Speaker 1: possible motives. On Wednesday 16th May 2012, Mick Philpott held
24:22
Speaker 1: an emotional press conference, unaware that he was the police's
24:27
Speaker 1: number one suspect.
24:29
Speaker 8: Didn't Philpott know that that the police has experts on
24:34
Speaker 8: reading people. You know, they have people who are trained
24:36
Speaker 8: for years on reading body language, facial expressions, eye movement,
24:42
Speaker 8: voice intonation, you know, everything.
24:45
Speaker 1: Philpott appeared to be distraught when he faced the cameras
24:48
Speaker 1: with a visibly grief-stricken Mirade. He started to thank people
24:52
Speaker 1: who'd tried to help on the night of the fire.
24:56
Speaker 10: And, of course, the four firemen, the police, the ambulances,
24:59
Speaker 10: the doctors, the nurses... Literally everybody who tried to help
25:06
Speaker 10: save our children, they couldn't.
25:09
Speaker 1: One intrigued viewer was body language expert Robert Phipps.
25:14
Speaker 11: Mick Philpott is very controlled throughout the whole interview, making
25:18
Speaker 11: a point of thanking everybody else, but not really mentioning
25:21
Speaker 11: the children that have just died. The signals that he
25:24
Speaker 11: gives off are not in the normal range of somebody
25:27
Speaker 11: expressing grief, anxiety, sadness. which he should do having just
25:32
Speaker 11: lost his children. Somebody normally expressing grief, you would see
25:36
Speaker 11: contorting of the face, not just one consistent look. And
25:40
Speaker 11: this is what you have with Mick, is one consistent
25:42
Speaker 11: look throughout the whole thing. His face is not going
25:45
Speaker 11: through the turmoil as compared to Mairead, who you see
25:49
Speaker 11: her eyebrows are moving, her forehead has got different wrinkles
25:52
Speaker 11: in it. Her face is just contorted with pain. We
25:55
Speaker 11: don't see any of that from Mick.
25:58
Speaker 3: If ever evidence were needed of Philpott's capacity for being disingenuous,
26:05
Speaker 3: for convincing the world, and I suspect himself into the bargain,
26:09
Speaker 3: that he alone was right. It was in the classic
26:13
Speaker 3: case of his crocodile tears during the televised press conference.
26:19
Speaker 3: Those tears were yet further evidence of his capacity for self-delusion,
26:26
Speaker 3: which is one of the hallmarks of his life, along
26:29
Speaker 3: with the capacity to believe that he alone can dictate
26:32
Speaker 3: what happens to the world.
26:33
Speaker 11: Right from the beginning, Mick Philpott's body language is inconsistent
26:37
Speaker 11: with somebody showing grief. His blinking rate is far, far
26:40
Speaker 11: too high. The normal range is around about 20, 25
26:44
Speaker 11: blinks per minute. We counted in this as much as
26:46
Speaker 11: 80 to 90 blinks a minute. This is showing his nervousness.
26:51
Speaker 11: Mick is dabbing away with his tissue here to imaginary tears.
26:55
Speaker 11: They're not there, therefore the tissue itself doesn't get wet,
26:59
Speaker 11: it doesn't crumple. If you look at that in comparison
27:02
Speaker 11: to Mairead's tissue, it's all crumpled because she is actually
27:05
Speaker 11: expressing tears, real genuine tears. If you look at the
27:09
Speaker 11: lines on their forehead, these are just straight lines.
27:12
Speaker 4: There's no expression.
27:13
Speaker 11: These are his normal everyday lines.
27:16
Speaker 7: If you look at Mairead's face, she's raised her eyebrows.
27:19
Speaker 11: They've come in, so she's got a furrowed brow and
27:22
Speaker 11: she's pulling these eyebrows in, which shows the pain that
27:24
Speaker 11: she's going through. You can also see the way her mouth,
27:29
Speaker 11: is contorted and changing with each expression of different emotions.
27:34
Speaker 11: Mick is consistent all the way through. One thing that
27:37
Speaker 11: they don't do throughout the entire press conference is appeal
27:41
Speaker 11: for help. Who set this fire?
27:43
Speaker 4: Who killed these children?
27:46
Speaker 6: Why?
27:47
Speaker 7: Because he knows he did it.
27:49
Speaker 4: It wasn't just the police who were suspicious.
27:52
Speaker 1: Philpott's performance had baffled the onlooking press too.
27:57
Speaker 6: At the end of it, I got in the car
27:59
Speaker 6: to drive back to the office and I thought, that's
28:01
Speaker 6: not right. Something's not right about that. He's not once
28:04
Speaker 6: mentioned the children. He's not mentioned them by name. He's
28:08
Speaker 6: not looked into any cameras and said, please will someone
28:12
Speaker 6: out there help me find out who's done this. It's
28:15
Speaker 6: a suspicious fire in his own home. and not once
28:18
Speaker 6: has he made an appeal to the public, to anyone
28:20
Speaker 6: who's watching, you know, please, anyone with information, come forward.
28:24
Speaker 7: Not once.
28:25
Speaker 6: So then I got back to the office, and as
28:27
Speaker 6: I walked in, I could see everyone was still stood
28:30
Speaker 6: around the TV, and we all looked at each other,
28:34
Speaker 6: and that was the moment that we all knew, you know,
28:38
Speaker 6: something's wrong here.
28:39
Speaker 7: This is a game-changer.
28:42
Speaker 3: Disingenuous would be a polite way of describing it, It
28:46
Speaker 3: is typical of a man who believes he alone rules
28:51
Speaker 3: the world. He is an emperor of everything he surveys.
28:56
Speaker 3: He is a man whose vanity knows no bounds, a
28:58
Speaker 3: man for whom he is the center of the universe,
29:02
Speaker 3: which in the end convinced the police that he wasn't
29:06
Speaker 3: telling the truth, that he seemed so capable of this
29:11
Speaker 3: kind of sleight of hand. He may have convinced himself,
29:14
Speaker 3: but he didn't convince many other people I.
29:16
Speaker 5: Think he's such a narcissist, he's so arrogant and he
29:20
Speaker 5: thinks he's gotten away with it, that he thinks he's invincible.
29:23
Speaker 5: He thinks that his act, as he's fooled many women
29:27
Speaker 5: over the years, is going to fool the rest of us,
29:29
Speaker 5: and it certainly didn't.
29:31
Speaker 1: The residents of Victory Road who'd rallied round the family
29:35
Speaker 1: also started to wonder what was going on.
29:37
Speaker 2: Their behaviour was strange. He did ask me if he
29:44
Speaker 2: thought the police, he said he thought the police.
29:46
Speaker 4: Was blaming him.
29:48
Speaker 2: He did say that to me. They think he did
29:51
Speaker 2: it and stuff like that.
29:52
Speaker 1: 88 officers working on the case had taken over 5,000
29:58
Speaker 1: statements from local residents, some of which suggested that the
30:02
Speaker 1: police themselves had made more of an effort to save
30:06
Speaker 1: the six children than the Philpotts. On May 29th, 2012,
30:10
Speaker 1: 18 days after the fatal blaze, Mick Philpott and his
30:15
Speaker 1: wife Mireille were arrested on suspicion of murder.
30:21
Speaker 6: And again, that was another strange scenario because I was
30:25
Speaker 6: sat at my desk and a press release pings into
30:29
Speaker 6: my inbox that says a 56-year-old man and a 31-year-old
30:33
Speaker 6: woman have been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection
30:36
Speaker 6: with the Victory Road fire. And immediately I stood up
30:40
Speaker 6: and I shouted over to News Desk that the Phil
30:44
Speaker 6: Potts had been arrested on.
30:46
Speaker 7: Suspicion of murder.
30:47
Speaker 3: And.
30:49
Speaker 6: That was the second time in two weeks that we
30:50
Speaker 6: ran a special edition of the newspaper and that had
30:53
Speaker 6: never happened before. Although the police wouldn't confirm on the
30:55
Speaker 6: record that this is who it was, we got confirmation
30:58
Speaker 6: via other sources that it, you know, if.
31:00
Speaker 7: We said it's the Phil Potts that's been arrested, would
31:02
Speaker 7: we be wrong?
31:03
Speaker 3: No.
31:04
Speaker 1: On the 22nd of June, funeral services for 13-year-old Duane,
31:08
Speaker 1: 10-year-old Jade, 9-year-old John, 8-year-old Jack.
31:14
Speaker 1: 6-year-old Jesse and 5-year-old Jayden were held at St. Mary's
31:19
Speaker 1: Catholic Church in Derby. In the days after the deadly fire,
31:26
Speaker 1: the local community had raised more than 15,000 pounds to
31:31
Speaker 1: pay for the funerals. Mick and Mireille Philpott were not
31:35
Speaker 1: allowed to attend.
31:37
Speaker 6: It's very close-knit, Allentown. Derby as a city is a
31:41
Speaker 6: small city, but it's a very proud city. and Allenton
31:46
Speaker 6: and some of the neighbouring areas to it and some
31:48
Speaker 6: of the, I hasten to use the word poorer areas,
31:52
Speaker 6: but the less affluent areas, it's very close-knit, really close-knit.
31:57
Speaker 7: I mean, the outpouring of emotion from the community was huge.
32:02
Speaker 1: On 5th November, a further arrest was made. Forensic evidence
32:07
Speaker 1: had found petrol on the clothing of not just Mick
32:10
Speaker 1: and Mireille Philpott, but also their friend Paul Mosley. All
32:14
Speaker 1: three were originally charged with murder, but in December, these
32:18
Speaker 1: charges were downgraded to manslaughter. The police accepted that although
32:23
Speaker 1: they'd started the blaze, they had not intended.
32:26
Speaker 4: To kill the children.
32:28
Speaker 3: It beggars belief to me that this charge is downgraded
32:33
Speaker 3: to manslaughter because, according to the statements at the time, Philpott,
32:41
Speaker 3: his wife, and Mosley didn't mean to kill the children.
32:46
Speaker 3: It's a tiny semi-detached house, and you've got six small children,
32:49
Speaker 3: and you've set fire to it. How can you not
32:52
Speaker 3: expect at least one of those children to die? It
32:57
Speaker 3: defies belief to me.
32:59
Speaker 1: At a hearing on December 17th, all three pleaded not
33:04
Speaker 1: guilty to manslaughter, meaning a trial would have to take place.
33:09
Speaker 1: On the 12th of February 2013 at Nottingham Crown Court,
33:13
Speaker 1: prosecutors set out to prove that Mick Philpott had made
33:17
Speaker 1: a plan that went horribly wrong. Local reporter Martin Naylor
33:22
Speaker 1: was in the courtroom.
33:24
Speaker 6: I remember Mick when he gave evidence talking about hearing
33:26
Speaker 6: a whooshing noise. When you light petrol, you're not lighting
33:30
Speaker 6: the fluid, you're lighting the fumes that's come off it.
33:33
Speaker 6: And in the time that it's taken for someone to
33:34
Speaker 6: put the petrol through the letterbox and then for someone...
33:38
Speaker 6: probably him, to light it, you know, this vapour was all.
33:42
Speaker 7: Up in the air. There was a huge whoosh.
33:44
Speaker 6: What he was describing was the whoosh of the fire
33:47
Speaker 6: going flying up the stairs. Now, those stairs had also
33:50
Speaker 6: been recently painted with, I think, yacht varnish or yacht paint,
33:54
Speaker 6: which is highly flammable. So the children, although there were
33:58
Speaker 6: working smoke alarms in there, they had no chance. They
34:02
Speaker 6: literally had no chance. And obviously the cause of death
34:06
Speaker 6: was the effects of smoke inhalation.
34:08
Speaker 1: Forensic expert Daniel Matthews was called to give evidence.
34:13
Speaker 9: I did some DNA work on the petrol cans that
34:15
Speaker 9: were found and I did some DNA work on some
34:18
Speaker 9: items of clothing that were found in the house to
34:20
Speaker 9: determine whether or not they could have been worn by
34:22
Speaker 9: occupants of the house. And I did some microscopic burn
34:25
Speaker 9: damage examination which would have potentially indicated whether a wearer
34:29
Speaker 9: of some items of clothing could have been close to
34:32
Speaker 9: an ignitable liquid when it was ignited.
34:35
Speaker 1: But because of the ferocity of the fire, no evidence
34:38
Speaker 1: remained inside the house. However, traces of petrol had been
34:43
Speaker 1: found on all three of the defendants' clothes. In one
34:47
Speaker 1: of the trial's key moments, Mick Philpott was asked to
34:50
Speaker 1: give his version of the events from the night that
34:54
Speaker 1: led to the tragic death of six of his own children.
34:58
Speaker 6: When Mick took the stand, he was the showman that
35:00
Speaker 6: he always was. Again, he was crying or supposedly crying
35:04
Speaker 6: in the dark. But the prosecution saw through all that.
35:09
Speaker 6: I don't think there was one single thing that nailed him.
35:13
Speaker 6: I think it was just the case just built up
35:15
Speaker 6: and built up and built up and was so strong,
35:17
Speaker 6: it was almost like piling bricks on top of him,
35:19
Speaker 6: just waiting for him to collapse. And I think his
35:22
Speaker 6: collapse came in his cross-examination because his denials were just
35:26
Speaker 6: absolutely ripped apart.
35:28
Speaker 5: During the trial, what we've got to remember is that
35:30
Speaker 5: this is essentially another stage on which Mick Philpott performs.
35:35
Speaker 5: He is playing to an audience. There are several outbursts
35:39
Speaker 5: of anger. And when his relatives shout at him in court,
35:44
Speaker 5: he shouts back at them and he sticks his middle
35:46
Speaker 5: finger up to them. So he really is incredibly defiant.
35:51
Speaker 5: He's incredibly showman-like in his personality. He wants to be
35:55
Speaker 5: the centre of attention. He knows that the media circus
35:58
Speaker 5: is still going on and he wants to be the ringleader.
36:01
Speaker 1: On April 2nd, 2013, after an emotionally exhausting eight-week trial,
36:07
Speaker 1: the jury found the trio guilty of manslaughter.
36:11
Speaker 6: I recall one of Mairead's sisters standing up in the
36:14
Speaker 6: public gallery and shouting to her, I knew on day
36:17
Speaker 6: one you'd done this. I knew you'd done this before
36:20
Speaker 6: storming out. It was the first time that we'd effectively
36:24
Speaker 6: live blogged from court. We'd been given permission by the judge,
36:27
Speaker 6: and my fingers were trembling as I was, you know,
36:31
Speaker 6: typing things out to send back to the office for
36:33
Speaker 6: them to, on the website straightaway, guilty verdict, guilty verdict.
36:38
Speaker 1: On April 4th, 2013, during sentencing, Judge Mrs Justice Thirlwall
36:44
Speaker 1: told the trio,'' All three of you are responsible for
36:48
Speaker 1: the deliberate setting of that fire.
36:50
Speaker 4: All three of you are responsible for those deaths.
36:54
Speaker 1: Mireille Philpott and Paul Mosley were each sentenced to 17 years.
36:58
Speaker 1: 56-year-old Mick Philpott was sentenced to life. He was immediately
37:06
Speaker 1: sent to Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire. Mrs Justice Thirlwall
37:11
Speaker 1: described him as a disturbingly dangerous man and as the
37:15
Speaker 1: driving force behind the wicked plan.
37:19
Speaker 3: In my opinion, Philpott should have been given a whole
37:21
Speaker 3: life term, and I do not approve of whole life terms,
37:24
Speaker 3: but I cannot think of anyone who more richly deserves
37:28
Speaker 3: to spend the rest of his life behind bars than
37:31
Speaker 3: Mick Philpott, who killed six of his own children. He
37:35
Speaker 3: is a man who deserves nothing but the greatest contempt,
37:40
Speaker 3: and I cannot understand, I will never understand, why he
37:44
Speaker 3: was not charged and convicted of murder.
37:47
Speaker 6: One small mercy it is that they would probably have
37:50
Speaker 6: died very quickly, but that didn't really help the poor
37:52
Speaker 6: firefighters who had to give evidence and tell about bringing
37:56
Speaker 6: the bodies out of the house and putting them on
37:57
Speaker 6: the lawn and trying to keep them alive outside.
38:00
Speaker 1: For the neighbors who tried to rescue the children, it
38:03
Speaker 1: was an emotional moment.
38:04
Speaker 2: I was relieved that it was over. I was a
38:07
Speaker 2: bit shocked that it was him. Because if you did
38:12
Speaker 2: see him with his kids, his family, Very heartbreaking. Because
38:22
Speaker 2: he did love his kids. He showed that very much.
38:26
Speaker 2: I think it was some sort of ploy to get
38:30
Speaker 2: something out of. I didn't think it was meant to
38:32
Speaker 2: spread that fast to fire. I didn't think it was
38:34
Speaker 2: meant to kill anyone. I think it was a very
38:38
Speaker 2: stupid thing to do. And unfortunately he paid for it.
38:44
Speaker 1: The case has had a lasting effect on the nation,
38:48
Speaker 1: nowhere more so than in Derby itself.
38:51
Speaker 6: I think the initial impact was massive. I think it
38:55
Speaker 6: was huge. Certainly at the time of the fire and
38:58
Speaker 6: in the next almost year until the guilty verdict came in,
39:02
Speaker 6: it was the biggest story that Derby's ever seen. I
39:07
Speaker 6: once thought to myself and I once said that I
39:11
Speaker 6: didn't think Derby would get over this. I thought it
39:13
Speaker 6: was too big and too tragic a story for a
39:16
Speaker 6: city the size of Derby.
39:18
Speaker 7: Could forget.
39:20
Speaker 4: But it has.
39:21
Speaker 6: And it's got stronger. The city's definitely got stronger. It's
39:24
Speaker 6: united people. And he is the common enemy of the city.
39:30
Speaker 6: where he was born and raised.
39:32
Speaker 1: Philpott was the evil ringleader in a despicable plan that
39:37
Speaker 1: led to the death of six innocent children.
39:40
Speaker 8: To me, it sounds like Philpott was more upset that
39:43
Speaker 8: the plan didn't work than the loss of the kids.
39:46
Speaker 8: I think he will hit them. I think it hits
39:49
Speaker 8: any father, you know, unless you are a 100% psychopath,
39:55
Speaker 8: which is like you have zero emotions towards other human
39:58
Speaker 8: beings and you pretend everything. And I don't think he
40:01
Speaker 8: was that detached.
40:03
Speaker 5: I think that Mick Philpott did an incredibly evil and
40:06
Speaker 5: an incredibly selfish thing. He was essentially looking to get
40:10
Speaker 5: revenge for a perceived wrong against him by a woman
40:14
Speaker 5: who he thought was under his control. The most tragic
40:17
Speaker 5: part of this case is the fact that six children's
40:21
Speaker 5: lives were lost in Mick Philpott's attempts to basically rescue
40:26
Speaker 5: his own ego. My view of him as a criminologist,
40:30
Speaker 5: he was an incredibly narcissistic and a very dangerous man.
40:34
Speaker 5: He was always going to result in somebody else being harmed.
40:37
Speaker 5: His actions would always lead to someone else coming to
40:40
Speaker 5: harm because it was all about him. He never had
40:43
Speaker 5: any empathy, any concern for anybody else.
40:46
Speaker 3: There is not one single word you can find to
40:49
Speaker 3: explain or apologise for his actions. Seldom have I ever
40:53
Speaker 3: thought of someone as grotesque and as thoughtless and as
41:00
Speaker 3: vain as Philpott is. There is something about him that
41:04
Speaker 3: genuinely does send a chill down your spine.
41:08
Speaker 1: Mick Philpott is a greedy and selfish man. His lust
41:12
Speaker 1: for revenge on a woman who left him led to
41:15
Speaker 1: the death of six of his own children. He may
41:19
Speaker 1: not have meant to have killed them, but his devious
41:22
Speaker 1: plan in which he involved his wife and a friend
41:25
Speaker 1: meant that Duane, Jade, John, Jack, Jesse and Jayden died
41:32
Speaker 1: in the most horrific way. The city of Derby now
41:36
Speaker 1: chooses to remember them and not the name of Mick Philpot,
41:41
Speaker 1: one of the world's most evil killers.