Ex-soldier Kyle Clifford, 26, was cowering in the medical wing of maximum-security HMP Belmarsh this morning as he refused to attend for court to be sentenced for the triple murder
Cowardly Kyle Clifford today refused to face justice in a final insult to the family of BBC horse racing pundit John’s murdered family.
The jilted ex-soldier, 26, was cowering in the medical wing of maximum-security HMP Belmarsh this morning as he refused to attend for court to be sentenced for the triple murder. His trial for rape was held at Cambridge Crown Court to accommodate the killer’s wheelchair after he shot himself with a crossbow after the attacks last June.
Mr Justice Joel Bennathan said: “He has refused to attend. I was asked by staff from Belmarsh whether he should be restrained in order to attend a video room.
“The idea of a man being put in a wheelchair in restraints and potentially disrupting proceedings is not something I want. If the defendant lacks the courage to face today, so be it.”
Clifford – who admitted killing ex-girlfriend Louise, 25, her sister Hannah, 28, and their mother Carol, 61 – was left paralysed from the chest down. But he exercised his right not to attend last week as he was found guilty of rape.
Today, as prosecutor Alison Morgan KC began laying out the sentencing, Clifford again refused to look his victims’ family in the eye. In contrast Mr Hunt – praised last week for his “dignity” and “restraint” during the rape trial -today watched from the public gallery as the sentencing began. He sat with surviving daughter Amy, 31.
Last week Cambridge Crown Court heard how Clifford – fuelled by the misogyny of toxic social media influencer Andrew Tate – bound and gagged Louise at the family home in Bushey, Herts. He potentially faces a whole life tariff, applicable in cases featuring more than one murder.
The former Queen’s Dragoon Guard hatched his atrocity in secret after Louise ended their 18-month relationship last June 26. They met on the dating website Bumble and prosecutor Alison Morgan said he “controlled the relationship deceitfully”.
Louise dumped him after he openly boasted about bedding other women when they attended a wedding together and he spent the next 13 days “meticulously” planning the attack. He compiled suicide notes on his phone and bought a rope, duct tape, £357 crossbow from an archery company and 10in steel butcher’s knife through Amazon.
CCTV showed Clifford arriving at the Hunts’ at 2.30pm and tricking Carol into letting him inside on the pretence of returning Louise’s items. A minute later he pulled the knife from a rucksack and stabbed Carol five times in the chest.
He then fetched the crossbow from his SEAT Ibiza and carried it to the house under a blanket. Louise, who ran a dog grooming business from a garden pod, went into the house at 4.12pm. Clifford then restrained and raped her. At one point he used Louise’s phone to text her dad to ask when he would be back from work.
Mr Hunt replied: “Late, I am afraid. Everything ok sweetness?” Clifford waited until beautician Hannah returned from work at 6.50pm before shooting Louise in the chest with the crossbow.
Clifford, of Enfield, north London, is today being sentenced for three counts of murder, one of rape, one of false imprisonment and two counts of possession of an offensive weapon at Cambridge Crown Court.
The hearing continues.
