Background
The mother, Stacey Clay, and the father were a couple for approximately 15½ years, before the mother ended the relationship on 24 April 2021. The children have described their objective experience of the father as being highly abusive and controlling of the mother while they were a family. 6.Following the separation, it is clear that the father neither accepted its permanence nor the end of his perceived right to control the mother’s actions. He embarked on what was later described as a campaign of stalking, harassment and intimidation. When sentencing the father on 21 January 2022, HHJ Dickinson QC referred to a background of threat and intimidation; of damage to the garden; of sending intimate pictures of the mother to her own mother; of incessant phone calls and other communications; and of going to the property in the middle of the night. For example, on 18 May 2021 at 1.53 am he was in the back garden with his head hooded, peering into the security camera, presenting a most menacing image, as was his intention. 7.This unpleasant and disturbing campaign by the father led the mother to complain to the police, leading to the father’s arrest on 15 May 2021 for harassment, criminal damage and sending of revenge pornography to Carol York. The father was bailed by the police early on 16 May 2021, the conditions of bail being he should not contact the mother or go to her home. The father paid no attention to these conditions and persisted in his campaign of intimidation, causing the mother to experience great fear and leading her to change the locks and to install security cameras. 8.Still the father was not deterred. On 18 May 2021 the father purchased a knife, and CCTV recorded him practising with it, stabbing empty boxes. That night he went to the home. He was again wearing a hood. He was equipped with food and drink. He arrived at 3:20 in the morning, prepared for a long wait. The mother must have sensed that something was amiss, because she made a 999 call, but the father evaded the police by hiding behind the barbecue in the garden. In a sinister act, he went and breathed on the window behind which was positioned the security camera.9. At 06:00 in the morning, the mother, who the children described as being beside herself with anxiety at that time, entered the garden to smoke a cigarette or two. 10.The father thereupon attacked her brutally, stabbing her in the neck, back and flank 21 times. The mother fought back bravely. The knife broke, and so the father strangled her and punched her. He was still strangling her when the police arrived. They were only able to stop the father, who seemed to be in the grips of bloodlust, by tasering him. 11.If this were not disturbing enough, this appalling conduct was witnessed by the children. Their mother’s screams awoke them. From an upstairs window, they clearly saw the father lying on the mother, stabbing her, causing copious amounts of blood to emit. In witnessing this dreadful scene, I have no doubt that these children must have suffered very profound trauma. 12.The mother was taken to hospital but ultimately died from her injuries on 2 June 2021. She was aged only 39 at the time of her death. 13.The father pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility but was duly convicted on 20 January 2021. The following day, HHJ Dickinson QC sentenced the father to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 29 years. The starting point, given that a knife was used, was 25 years, but there were seriously aggravating factors which raised the term to 29 years. 14.The parties are agreed that these children are Gillick competent.