My evil ex burned down the house with my two boys inside, I held my youngest as I watched the life leave his eyes
WHEN Jack, 12, and his little brother Paul, 9, followed their dad Darren Sykes to the attic of his home they had no idea it would be the last thing they ever did.
Expecting to be met by a new train set, sweets and toys as promised by Sykes, the innocent boys were instead murdered by their own father.
The two boys fought for their lives as Sykes lit 14 fires around the home, barricading all doors and windows with furniture so firemen could not reach them until it was too late, eventually killing all three of them.
For the past eight years their mum Claire Throssell, MBE, has tirelessly campaigned to change the visiting rights if a parent is convicted of domestic violence and abuse – a law that would have saved her two sons.
The boys had been forced to spend time with their abusive dad by a court order granting him five hours a week- even after Claire warned he was capable of killing.
Claire, 52, from Penistone, South Yorks, is now less than 3,000 signatures off her 100,000 goal to bring the bill to parliament and she is pleading with Sun readers to help her reach it.
And Spice Girl and mum Melanie Brown, 48, who is a survivor of domestic abuse from her ex husband, is now urging you to get behind the mum’s plight.
She says: “I totally support Claire’s campaign – no woman should have to go through what she went through and we have to start making changes now!
“The family courts are not safe for women and are survivors of domestic abuse – I know from personal experience that going through the courts can be as traumatising as the abuse itself.
“We need to do something right away. We ALL need to support Claire. Ten years on since the killing of her sons very little has progressed. Please listen. Please support her.”
The two women’s heartfelt pleas come as devastating figures revealed that in the last five years there was an average of 52 child deaths by assault or undetermined intent a year in the UK according to the NSPCC.
Speaking as part of Life Stories, Fabulous’ new YouTube series which documents the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, Claire says: “I decided that I would stand up and fight.
“It’s either that or it’s crawling up in the corner and giving up.I couldn’t do that, their lives meant too much.
“I’m fighting for one more law to go through and that law will enable children to live a happy normal life.
“To give them the choice of who they want in their lives, not to be forced to see somebody and not to presume they’re not capable of making decisions for themselves.”
Prince Charming act
Claire was just 24 when she first met Sykes back in 1996 and she says she never imagined what he would be capable of.
“He was charming, he was caring, he called me his princess,” she recalls.
“But narcissists can keep up this behaviour for six years, and he managed to keep it up for seven.”
Just a year after meeting Sykes, he proposed.
“When the engagement came a year after the relationship started it was a big showy affair at a local restaurant,” Claire remembers.
“There were two dozen roses, champagne, and lots of people in the restaurant.”
A year later they married, and Claire says that at first their relationship seemed perfect.
“The first three years of marriage were wonderful,” she says.
The mask slipped
“But in the fourth year my dad died suddenly of a massive heart attack at home.
“He was the barrier that my ex husband would not cross and once he had gone and I was five months pregnant and vulnerable that was when the mask started to slip.
“And when Jack was born that was when the mask slipped completely.”
Following Jack’s birth in 2002 Claire began to experience regular abuse at the hands of her husband, which only got worse when their second son Paul was born in 2005.
“It started out like a tap dripping. The odd comment here and there, the odd insult here and there and this tap that’s dripping suddenly starts to run,” she says.
“You’re drowning in insults and physical pain all while trying to protect your children.
“They were begging to leave.”
BREAKING POINT
Claire finally found the strength to leave Sykes in 2014 after one incident in particular meant she was lucky to be alive.
“Jack was 12 and was in grammar school and Darren was always on at him to get his homework done,” she says.
“He was going on about how he’d never achieve anything in life if his homework wasn’t done on time, was his homework planner up to date.
“And Jack just turned round and said, ‘Yes, leave me alone.’
“The next thing I knew the punch was coming Jack’s way and at the level it was it would have hit his face.
“Without thinking I just pushed him into his bedroom and I got the punch on my arm.
“It was hard enough to spin me around at the top of the stairs and I landed at the bottom of the stairs.
“Paul came flying through the kitchen into the hallway and Jack came down the stairs, they were just distraught.
“Darren was standing at the top of the stairs and I’ll never forget what he said. He said ‘look what you made me do.’
“I didn’t want my sons to grow up thinking that was normal so I told them to run for the car and we went to my mum’s.”
For the next few months the boys were able to enjoy a normal childhood with their mum.
The boys said many, many, many times they didn’t want to see him
Claire Throssell
“From that moment you could see a change in the boys because they were with me,” Claire says.
“They truly believed that a better future was coming for them and they wouldn’t have to see their dad and I could never promise them that.
“At night time I often recriminate myself for that.
“The boys said many, many, many times they didn’t want to see him and we fought long and hard but the judge still insisted on five hours contact. Unsupervised contact.
“I’d written in my application that he was capable of killing them and it didn’t take five hours for him to be able to do what he did.”
EVIL PLAN
On 22 October 2014, Claire was on a training course to become a teaching assistant with her two boys heading to Sykes for their two hours of visitation on a Wednesday afternoon.
“I got home and I’d just sat down and at 6:45 there was a knock on the door,” Claire remembers.
“My mum said ‘that’ll be the boys back early from a bad visit’, but I knew something was wrong as they’d normally run in and come to me.
“Every time they went on a visit I was anxious, I was screwed up inside because I knew that they weren’t safe and I didn’t want to answer the door.
“When I did there was a local police officer on the door and the first words I said were ‘what’s he done?’”
The police officer told Claire there’d been an incident at Sykes’ home and that she needed to go with him immediately.
When they arrived at the property, the mum was met by the aftermath of her ex’s evil plan.
“He had lit 14 separate fires using petrol,” she says.
“He’d barricaded the doors and he’d locked them in with the sole intention that the fire brigade wouldn’t be able to get in but they wouldn’t be able to get out.”
Claire was blue-lighted to Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital, where she discovered medics doing CPR on her youngest.
“The doctor asked if I was Paul’s mum and then told me they were going to let him go,” Claire says.
“Once I walked into that room, resuscitation stopped and they put him in my arms and his eyes just glazed over and his soul was gone.
“When you hear the words, the light’s gone out of somebody’s eyes you don’t believe it, you think that’s just something out of a book
“But it’s true, those beautiful blue eyes just turned grey.
“The nurse, ever so discreetly, closed his eyes and I held him so tightly his hair was wet with my tears.”
Claire was told that Jack, who was 56% burned with third-degree burns, was still fighting for his life and that he’d been able to speak.
“I walked into the resuscitation area and Jack was there all bandaged up,” she says.
“I told him I was there and to hang on but they had to operate there and then for the burns.
“Then I had to make the worst decision of my life.
“I wanted to stay with Paul, he was 9, he wasn’t old enough to be left alone. But I had to go with Jack to the paediatric burns unit in Manchester.
“I’d have stayed with my boy forever but I had to go and say a last goodbye and go with Jack.
“As we got halfway I realised this was the furthest my sons had ever been apart in their lives.”
UNBEARABLE LOSS
Jack fought for five days but died on October 27 after going into cardiac arrest from sepsis during a 17 hour operation.
“My heart shattered into a thousand pieces when I lost Paul and it shattered into a million pieces when I lost Jack,” Claire says.
“They each took half my heart, they each took half of my soul.
“It took just 15 minutes for Darren to take three lives.
“I don’t live now, I exist – my life went with the boys.”
After his death, Claire learnt of her eldest’s bravery as he’d tried desperately to save his younger brother.
How you can get help
Women's Aid has this advice for victims and their families:
- Always keep your phone nearby.
- Get in touch with charities for help, including the Women’s Aid live chat helpline and services such as SupportLine.
- If you are in danger, call 999.
- Familiarise yourself with the Silent Solution, reporting abuse without speaking down the phone, instead dialing “55”.
- Always keep some money on you, including change for a pay phone or bus fare.
- If you suspect your partner is about to attack you, try to go to a lower-risk area of the house – for example, where there is a way out and access to a telephone.
- Avoid the kitchen and garage, where there are likely to be knives or other weapons. Avoid rooms where you might become trapped, such as the bathroom, or where you might be shut into a cupboard or other small space.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, SupportLine is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s email support service is open weekdays and weekends during the crisis – messageinfo@supportline.org.uk.
Women’s Aid provides a live chat service – available weekdays from 8am-6pm and weekends 10am-6pm.
You can also call the freephone 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
“Details came out that Jack had tried to save his brother up in the attic,” she says.
“Jack was trying to help Paul, that young boy of mine who was so quiet he had the courage and heart of a lion.
“He went back for his brother when he fell.
“It was his hand that Paul felt last, I only held him as he died and it was Jack’s strength that pulled him across the attic.
“But because he was pulling him backwards he fell through the hatch.
“As he lay on the landing in the flames and the fireman managed to pick him up, Jack said to the fireman, ‘My dad did this and he did it on purpose.’”
Jack had been due to have his welfare interview with children’s welfare service Cafcass the day he died.
The two faces you want to see most in the world are never there
Claire Throssell
Shortly before killing the boys, the abuser had behaved aggressively towards a female Cafcass worker and barricaded her in an office.
But the fatal contact meeting was still permitted.
A case review later found that “they couldn’t have predicted the harm” — despite Claire’s constant warnings that the abuser could kill.
TIME FOR CHANGE
She is now campaigning to end Practice Direction 12, which states that it is in children’s best interest to have contact with both parents.
Claire has already won a change in the law so children can be recognised as victims of domestic abuse.
But she said courts have a deep “pro-contact” culture which puts the children of abusers in danger.
“I want this law to change so I can go to where Jack and Paul sleep and touch their stone and say ‘we’ve done it’,” Claire says.
“I want them to know that their friend’s children and other generations to come will be safe and happy.”
While a change in law will bring a great comfort to Claire, sadly it will never bring back her two boys.
“The silence as you walk into your home is deafening,” she says.
“My house isn’t home and I won’t be home until I meet them again.
“The very worst part of all is the constant loneliness.
“You can walk into a room full to the brim of people that love you and it’s the loneliest place in the world because the two faces you want to see most in the world are never there.”
Isabelle Younane, Head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid, said:
“Claire has campaigned tirelessly to stop unsafe child contact with dangerous perpetrators of domestic abuse, since her two sons, Jack and Paul, were devastatingly killed by their father nearly 10 years ago.
“Her commitment and resolve has already made strides towards safer family courts for women and children, as it is now mandatory for the courts to determine whether children will be at risk of harm from a contact order, and perpetrators are no longer able to cross examine their victims in court.
“Despite having achieved so much, we know that women and children are still being failed by the family courts and Claire continues to fight for change. 8 years on from the launch of her petition, which calls on the government and family courts to ensure there are no further avoidable child death as a result of unsafe child contact with domestic abuse perpetrators, it nearly has 100,000 signatures.
“By signing the petition, you can help by sending a clear message to the Justice Secretary that the safety of children must be a key government priority.”
To sign Claire’s petition please visit the Child First campaign at 38Degrees.