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Super Nanny Jo Frost explores one of the most shocking crimes in British history - a mother's murder at the hands of her child.
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00:00In April 2011, here in Nottingham, Jackie Bartholome was brutally attacked and murdered by her own son, Daniel, in their family home. He was just 14 years old.
00:24After bludgeoning Jackie to death with a hammer, Daniel set her body alight.
00:30He had fantasised about killing her for months. He'd plotted, planned and scripted his own mum's death.
00:41I've been working with children for over 25 years and in that time I've been invited into hundreds of family homes around the world.
00:50I understand the complex human nature of children, their behaviour and healthy functional family life.
00:56And for me, the words evil and children just don't sit well together.
01:02How can someone so young commit, follow through and execute such a monstrous act?
01:09And in this case, what motivates a young boy to murder his own mother?
01:14The first time I saw Daniel Bartolome in the dock at Nottingham Crown Court, I was surprised at how young he looked.
01:32He didn't look 14 years old. He looked maybe 11 or 12.
01:39And for the first time as a journalist, I found out what exactly this boy was charged with and what he'd done.
01:50It was shocking. It was absolutely tragic to think that a boy of that age could dream up such a plan, put it into action and then leave the house and pretend that he was the hero that had led the family dog to safety and his young brother.
02:09Unfortunately, his mother had been left in the house and had perished.
02:16In 2012, Daniel Bartolome was sentenced to 16 years in prison for murdering his own mother.
02:23The press were quick to brand the youngster a devil child.
02:29To find out that Daniel planned to kill his own mother and then hear all the details, it is also hard to believe.
02:35The most difficult part for us and something that only Daniel can answer is why.
02:40In my many years working with kids, I've seen some troubling examples of family life.
02:45Cases of parents abusing children, neglect, and at times, for sure, teenagers pushing the boundaries.
02:53Thankfully, I've never encountered a family where I actually feared for the life of a parent.
03:00Jackie Bartolome's partner, Simon Matters, was away for the Easter weekend.
03:05By the time he returned, the bottom had fallen out of his world.
03:11Can you take me back?
03:12I spoke to Jackie on the morning, so it was Easter Sunday.
03:16We had a text, you know, you're okay sort of thing, yeah.
03:19I think she told me Daniel was going out with the grandparents or something.
03:23So nothing out of the ordinary.
03:25Next morning, there was a news report that there had been a fire in Nottingham, in Arnold, and that's all I got.
03:31That's all I knew.
03:33And then, sort of, maybe an hour later, it confirmed that there had been a fire on this particular road where she lived.
03:39And I didn't know at that point, but I knew straight away it was her house.
03:42I don't know why.
03:44Still don't know to this day why, but I knew it was her house.
03:47Straight away I thought Daniel.
03:50Daniel was born on November the 11th, 1996.
03:54His mum Jackie and father Adrian got married when he was three.
03:57He grew up in a nice detached house, in middle-class surroundings, and attended the local private school.
04:05But soon after the birth of his younger brother, nine-year-old Daniel had to deal with the split of his parents and began to display anything but typical behaviour.
04:15Daniel's an interesting character.
04:20What we'd normally expect in such a violent incident from a child or a teenager is a history of abuse and neglect in his background, and that apparently is absent.
04:30And it seems that the only thing that seemed to have traumatised him was the divorce of his parents.
04:37Divorcing parents are preoccupied with their own needs.
04:41They have financial needs, they have social needs, they're looking for perhaps solace in a new partner or in friends.
04:49And what they're not available for is the children.
04:52Jackie met Simon on a night out in May 2008.
04:58Yeah, I mean, I didn't go out planning to meet somebody or anything like that.
05:03I mean, I'd been split up for quite some time.
05:06And yeah, it was comforting to know somebody was there, absolutely.
05:10I think with Jackie it was just the way she cared for everybody.
05:14She showed a genuine interest in people.
05:16Yeah.
05:17I think that I found that quite attractive.
05:18Jackie's divorce had financial implications on the Bartlen family, and it was Daniel who it seemed to affect the most.
05:29He went from a good private school to a state school.
05:34Now that's not a bad thing in itself, but the state school children would have probably picked on him for that.
05:39And he may have been bullied, teased about his previous school, and not found his new school environment very pleasant.
05:49He was told he had to come out of the private school and go to a mainstream school.
05:54And it was at that point that we started discussing about moving in together.
05:58Right, yeah.
05:59To sell my house and sell her house and to pool resources to buy a house.
06:04Yeah.
06:05But it was at that point that Daniel started playing up.
06:07Right.
06:08And that's when it started becoming apparent there was a few issues.
06:10So why didn't that actually happen?
06:11That, you know, the actual moving in, you know, if you were planning on doing it?
06:16Yeah.
06:17We found a number of houses that we wanted, but we couldn't find the house that was agreeable to Daniel.
06:23To Daniel?
06:24To Daniel.
06:25That wasn't my decision, but Jackie's decision.
06:28How did you feel about that?
06:29Well, I felt at that point that it was Daniel calling the shots.
06:32Yeah.
06:33Rather than deciding where to live, moving in and then making the most of...
06:37Because obviously Jackie wouldn't have put him in any old school just for the sake of it.
06:40Yeah.
06:41She would have found the best school for him.
06:42Yeah.
06:43What did he say to her that would make her go no?
06:45I mean, obviously if you...
06:46Well, he was constantly saying that he didn't want to leave the private school.
06:50And he was constantly saying that, sort of, I can't go to a comprehensive school or whatever.
06:56Right.
06:57Because he just didn't, wasn't, it was below him really.
07:03One thing is for sure, Daniel was having to deal with a lot of external and emotional changes.
07:09He was no longer an only child.
07:11He now had to find his place in an unfamiliar family dynamic as an older sibling.
07:16Could a new younger brother and a new partner to compete with for his mother's attention have left him feeling unloved?
07:25Pushed out even?
07:33So what effect would that have had on Daniel?
07:35I think that the time prior to the divorce, Daniel feels like he's got quite a lot of control over what's going on in his life.
07:42He knows where he is, he knows that this is where I go to school, this is where I live, everything is hunky-dory.
07:48And then afterwards, all of these changes are happening that are basically not brought about by him, but he feels they are happening to him.
07:56He is very egocentric.
07:58And I think it is that, that realization that I don't have power, I don't have control over this, this family unit now.
08:05Things are happening to me.
08:06Well, we know that the brain is incredibly plastic and is changing all the time.
08:13You know, if you learn to play the piano, it changes your brain completely.
08:16You know, so everything changes your brain, everything you experience.
08:19Adolescence is a time of enormous rejigging of the brain.
08:25But it has to be said that hundreds and hundreds of children live through their parents' divorce.
08:33They don't kill anybody.
08:35So those things in themselves don't change the brain in a way that causes somebody to kill.
08:43Alone and frustrated, Daniel hid himself away from the world.
08:48The impact of those things, being unhappy at school, unhappy at home, meant you became reclusive.
08:54And where all children explore things that are banned for them, such as 18 movies or horror movies,
09:01what children normally do is they control themselves socially by comparing notes with each other at school.
09:07But if you're socially isolated and a recluse, you go into a fantasy world.
09:13So you can see that the material that he was exposed to wasn't the material that a 14-year-old boy should be exposed to.
09:23But that's what was going on secretly in Daniel Bartman's bedroom.
09:30Now, in Daniel's case, he became more and more angry with the lack of attention he was getting from his parents.
09:38And unfortunately, his anger seemed to build up with the parent that he was living with most, which is his mother.
09:46And then at some point, he began to be influenced by the media to plan her harm.
09:55And eventually, Daniel was ready to snap.
09:58He made a decision at some point that it wasn't only going to harm his mother, he was going to actually kill his mother.
10:05By the age of 14, Daniel Bartlam had no social life, spending hours alone obsessively watching violent horror movies.
10:24But what led him to graduate from being a lonely, troubled youngster into a teenager capable of killing his own mother?
10:32There was one occasion that I don't, I can't remember what the, what had started it, but Daniel had started shouting at Jackie.
10:40Yeah.
10:41And he'd got right up to her face, literally nose to nose.
10:44And that was the first time I'd had to step in.
10:47And I literally stood him, I had to prise him away from her.
10:51And I literally, you know, I told, I actually did tell him, you better go out of the way quick.
10:56Yeah.
10:57Erm, I didn't threaten him, but I was getting angry because of what he was doing.
11:01Yeah.
11:02And he ran upstairs and he, for about, what seemed like two or three minutes, he was kicking.
11:06Erm, the banisters, hitting the wall.
11:08Right.
11:09Swearing and shouting, effing this, effing that.
11:12But eventually, he went into his room, slammed his door and that was it.
11:15And how was Jackie?
11:16Shaking, absolutely, visibly shaking.
11:19Scared?
11:20Er, I think so, yeah.
11:21Had I not been there.
11:22Yeah.
11:23Don't know what had happened.
11:25Did he do things? Did he do house chores? Was he a responsible boy?
11:29No.
11:30No, he was just selfish.
11:36A lot of people look at it and look at the bare bones, the facts of it, and say, can't you see what was going on here?
11:43And actually, when you look at some psychopathic behaviours, they are very consistent with teenage behaviours.
11:49Failure to take responsibility for your own actions, lack of remorse, you know, lack of empathy.
11:55So it's very difficult to distinguish when you've got a personality disorder on your hands versus a normal teenager.
12:01How many parents have their children up in the bedrooms, there's no communal computer downstairs, let alone the lack of parental guidance and true understanding of how this can shape and influence young children today?
12:18I think it often serves parents' short-term needs, doesn't it? I'm knackered, I've just got home from work, I've got to get the dinner on.
12:25Oh, he's going to go play upstairs on his video games or he's going to go just spend some time in his room.
12:30But if that goes on for hours and hours and hours and the kind of content that the child is consuming is this extreme and this violent, that's a recipe for disaster.
12:38It sounds like he spent a lot of time up there. Yeah, he did, yeah.
12:44Eat up in his room? Yeah.
12:47Video games up in his room? Yeah.
12:50Evening times up in the room? Yeah, very rarely came down, yeah.
12:53Oh, OK.
12:54Particularly towards the end when he got a bit older.
12:56Basically, nobody knew what he was doing in his room.
12:59Everybody presumed that he was doing his computer stuff.
13:02He used to mend laptops at 12 years old.
13:05You know, fix laptops for friends, get old broken laptops and fix them and, you know, make videos and put stuff on YouTube, watch DVDs.
13:14What sort of stuff was he watching? Horror movies.
13:18For a child of 11, 12, they were pretty gruesome.
13:25Daniel's browser history was discovered after the murder.
13:29It contained some shocking searches.
13:32So when the police started looking more closely at Daniel and what Daniel was up to, they found that he had a rather unhealthy sort of interest in some pretty strange things like murder.
13:46He'd been writing some pretty sort of disturbing, far-fetched, creative stories.
13:52Some of the stories that you'd bring downstairs about kids killing each other and fighting on their way to school and draw pictures of people stabbing each other and blood dripping.
14:02You know, just things which, at the time, you think, oh, kids, but looking back on it now, it's all not right, you know?
14:10No alarm bells going off then?
14:12This was like a year and a half before he did what he did.
14:16But then again, you know, at the end of the day, if he's watching horror movies, some kids are going to write stories about them, aren't they?
14:24They're going to sort of match the two up.
14:26But that doesn't mean that you're going to then commit a murder later on.
14:29That's the one thing that really stands out for me in this case, is that Daniel has gone from consuming violent media to actually creating it, producing it himself.
14:42And when you have somebody that does that, that makes real violence all the more possible, because it's a series of steps, isn't it?
14:49From thinking to doing, and he's on that path now.
14:53The extraordinary thing for me about Daniel's case is that in the end, it wasn't just horror movies and violent video games that inspired his murderous plans.
15:05In fact, it was a seemingly harmless primetime soap opera.
15:16He'd already decided that he hated his mother, that he wanted his mother dead.
15:20He'd already decided that it was probably her fault in his eyes, that he was in this unhappy situation, unhappy at school, unhappy at home, and the divorce was her fault.
15:33And therefore, having made that decision to kill her, to murder her, he was just then looking for a modus operandi, a technique, how to do it.
15:45And that's probably where the Coronation Street angle came in.
15:50Daniel Bartlam was looking online at the Coronation Street killing where a character called John Stape killed somebody with a hammer.
16:03He was absolutely obsessed with him.
16:06Troubled, angry, and crippled with emotional pain, it was Daniel's mum, Jackie, who bore the brunt of his ever more worrying behaviour.
16:15She had found a smaller, more affordable house in the Arnold region of Nottingham.
16:20Simon helped to pack up Daniel's bedroom.
16:23I found plastic tubs, you know, these carry crates you have with toys in.
16:27Yeah.
16:28They were full, when you lifted them, full of urine.
16:31Not new, been there for quite some time.
16:34Erm, obviously, I found, erm, he'd defecated all over his room and hidden towels, you know.
16:41What do you mean, like, all over his room?
16:42Well, he'd gone to the toilet and wiped himself and hidden the towels under the bed,
16:46where you wouldn't necessarily see it unless you were cleaning the room out.
16:49What was your first impression when you saw that?
16:54I was horrified, and that's, again, that's when I started thinking,
16:57there's something not quite right here.
17:00Simon soon made another disturbing discovery.
17:04I found a laptop bag full of Jackie's underwear,
17:07which I, I, I mentioned to Jackie, and, again, I was like,
17:11it's getting a bit much now, and then it, literally, Jackie said I was looking for them,
17:15didn't know where they'd gone.
17:16There was no sort of telling him off for doing it.
17:20She asked him, that was it.
17:23I think Jackie didn't want a fuss, I think she just wanted an easy life,
17:26rather than all this hassle about, you know,
17:28I think she realised later that it wasn't a fuss, it was quite serious.
17:32What do you mean when you say easy life,
17:34cos it's used so flippantly in today's society?
17:36Well, I don't think she wanted the hassle of the, the, the arguments with Daniel,
17:39cos he was constant, he was quite draining on everybody.
17:42Especially when he was with his mum, he was quite draining to, to be around him,
17:46because he, he was, he was quite demanding, even though he went in his room,
17:50he's, you know, everything he did was quite, you know, strange.
17:55What's your understanding of, of again, why he would have stole things
18:01and, and taken his mother's underwear and hid them in bags?
18:05Again, this is another thing that, that people have analysed really in a lot of detail
18:09and tried to say that there was some kind of sexual element to it.
18:12I don't think there was at all.
18:14It was again to elicit a reaction to have somebody really worried
18:18about this incredibly disturbing behaviour.
18:21People like Daniel, the world for them is kind of an experiment
18:24and they will push people's buttons and see what happens.
18:27What happens if I do this? What reaction will I get if I do that?
18:30And they're, they're constantly storing up this body of knowledge
18:33about other people's emotions and, and about what's the appropriate
18:36and inappropriate way to act.
18:42Daniel's disturbing behaviour was also concerning his teachers.
18:46They sent him to see the school counsellor after he claimed
18:49that his tie had a life of its own and was trying to kill him.
18:53So what they were looking for was what we call psychotic episodes.
18:58Um, people hearing voices or having strange thoughts.
19:01And this was because he said that his tie was trying to strangle him
19:06and he called his tie Fred.
19:08And of course, what they were looking for was psychotism
19:11and psychotic episodes and psychotic thinking
19:14rather than straightforward anxiety and depression.
19:17Did he have psychiatric problems?
19:20He had psychiatric assessments which, from what I understand,
19:25came back clear.
19:27But I don't see how somebody can do what he did
19:29without having some sort of psychiatric problem.
19:35I find his case really hard to understand,
19:37to understand the motive.
19:39Even if he was a psychopath, he's not getting any kudos from it.
19:43He's not getting status.
19:44He's not getting possessions from it.
19:47I don't understand his motivation.
19:49I'm worried about his reports of hearing voices,
19:52about his peculiar behaviour, defecating in his room.
19:56I'd want to know more what's going on there.
19:58He's a troubling case.
20:00There doesn't seem to be remorse,
20:02but there seems to be a whole lot else that's going on
20:04and doesn't exactly fit to me
20:06a typical pattern of a psychopathic individual.
20:09Nobody I've spoken to is 100% sure that Daniel had any mental illness.
20:19But the one thing we do know for sure
20:21is that he was a very angry boy.
20:23The degree of planning that he exhibited,
20:26the story on the computer,
20:28the staging, the setting fire to cover his tracks,
20:31and the way that he stucks his guns for weeks afterwards,
20:35it demonstrates a determination, a resilience,
20:38that's perhaps more characteristic of a hardened criminal
20:41and not a 14-year-old who's committed his first serious offence.
20:45And with his cries for help unanswered,
20:47the next step he took was a deadly one.
20:50By Easter 2011, Daniel Bartlom's relationship with his mother Jackie
21:05had reached an all-time low.
21:07The 14-year-old was demonstrating increasingly rebellious
21:11and disturbing behaviour at school
21:13and in their Nottingham home.
21:15He was obsessed with violent films
21:19and focused much of his anger towards his mum.
21:23We don't know why,
21:24whether it was revenge for ruining his life
21:27or whether he blamed her for the divorce.
21:29We have no idea why she was the target for his unhappiness.
21:35But we know that the murder of his mother
21:37was premeditated and planned.
21:40And where he got those plans from was the media.
21:46In the early hours of the morning of Tuesday,
21:48the 26th of April 2011,
21:51the Bartlom's neighbours awoke to a house fire.
21:57I was paged about half past seven in the morning, I think,
22:00and control basically just said to me,
22:02can you attend the nearest police station for nine o'clock,
22:06where we were going to have a briefing,
22:07and then the foreign investigation team
22:08were going to go down to the scene.
22:10So I probably arrived at the scene itself by about 11 o'clock.
22:13The police had cordoned off quite a large area around the estate,
22:18but obviously there was a lot of press interest.
22:21So we had to sort of go through the gauntlet of all the press
22:24and the cameras and everything.
22:25The first we were informed about it was that there'd been a fire
22:30in Georgia Drive in Arnold.
22:33And we had reporters on the scene.
22:36There were neighbours outside the houses wondering what had happened.
22:40And we learned from speaking to them that the little boy that lived there
22:45and his brother had come out of the house with the dog
22:49and that a lady inside had died.
22:52You could see from the outside that there was severe smoke damage
22:56to one of the windows.
22:58Something terrible had happened in there.
23:00The actual atmosphere itself is quite surreal in some ways.
23:04It's an unnatural, eerie silence.
23:07We're there as a professional team.
23:09We have a professional job to do,
23:11but you can't help thinking this is somebody's home,
23:13this was where somebody lived,
23:15right up until the point of the fire.
23:21Once we'd actually got the area of origin into the room itself,
23:25what we would then do is try and narrow down,
23:27try and work back as close as we could.
23:30In this particular instance,
23:31we came to the conclusion quite early on
23:33that the seat of the fire itself was on or around the actual body,
23:37which was lying on the floor.
23:40The badly burned body of Jackie Bartland
23:42was recovered and taken for a post-mortem.
23:45Her partner, Simon, rushed back to Nottingham
23:48from Yorkshire where he'd been working.
23:50Later on that day again, going into the evening time,
23:54obviously then got told a body had been found in the fire.
24:00And once I'd heard that,
24:04all I knew was that in my own mind
24:07it had something to do with Daniel.
24:09I didn't for one minute think that he'd done what he'd done.
24:11What are you feeling at the moment?
24:13You just sort of get transported into this place
24:17where you don't know, you can't believe what's going on.
24:20All I knew was Jackie was dead and there'd been a fire,
24:24but I didn't know, obviously,
24:25the other bits regarding what he'd actually done.
24:28Daniel's initial account was that he'd got up
24:31in the middle of the night to use the toilet.
24:34He'd found himself confronted with a masked man
24:37who'd thrown a hammer at him and fled.
24:40And he then saw that his mother had been attacked in her bedroom
24:44and that the bedroom was on fire.
24:46And he panicked and that he left the house
24:49with his younger brother and the dog,
24:51but that his mother was inside as the house burnt.
24:58Lies, you know, it's all lies.
25:00What are you thinking?
25:02Well, I'm putting together it's lies that that's what happened,
25:05as in there wasn't an intruder, there never was an intruder,
25:08and it was Daniel that actually done this.
25:11I'm thinking it's all sort of coming together now,
25:14it's all clicking into place.
25:16You know, all these previous behaviours,
25:20everything's clicking into place.
25:23And I think it was a relatively short time,
25:28you know, just a matter of a few hours,
25:30in this particular case,
25:32when the officers that were dealing started to think,
25:34well, you know, things aren't adding up here,
25:37and we're not absolutely sure
25:38that he's telling us exactly what happened.
25:43Did he ever feel anything for his mum?
25:45Yeah, I'd find it difficult to pinpoint a stage
25:48where he did feel that kind of closeness.
25:51It probably would have been in his very, very early years,
25:54but it's always been about him.
25:56For as long as he's been able to make decisions
25:59and to influence people, it's been about him.
26:02So why save the brother?
26:04Well, I think that the reason that he saved the brother
26:06was because he wanted to create that narrative
26:10of this person's come into the house
26:12and they've targeted my mother,
26:14and look, I'm the hero,
26:15because it paints him in a good light, doesn't it?
26:17If he rescues the brother, he rescues the dog.
26:20Daniel has saved the day.
26:22He's basically achieved two things.
26:24He's removed his mother from the equation,
26:26and at the same time,
26:27he's got everybody thinking how great he is
26:29because he's gone in there the hero.
26:31Just two days after the tragic house fire on Georgia Drive,
26:35the police arrested Daniel
26:37on suspicion of murdering Jackie, his own mother.
26:41I didn't know the facts of how she was killed.
26:46Sadly, and I still feel this,
26:48I wasn't surprised that Daniel had been involved.
26:54I wasn't surprised at all.
26:55It was something that I was expecting to hear,
26:57but obviously not to the point of what I later found out,
27:02but I wasn't surprised.
27:07Forensic searches of the home
27:09unearthed not one, but two hammers at the crime scene.
27:13There was one hammer which was a claw hammer,
27:15which examination of Jackie's body proved was the murder weapon,
27:20but there was also a kind of a club hammer
27:23that it transpired that Daniel had thrown in there
27:26to sort of be a red herring, if you like,
27:29or to be a supposed murder weapon.
27:39He's very typical of a lot of murderers
27:41that carry out a premeditated homicide like this
27:44in that he hasn't thought about the clear-up afterwards.
27:47He's given some consideration to it,
27:50but I think he's so arrogant
27:52and he's so sure of himself at this point in time
27:55that, you know, the details towards the end of the story,
27:57well, they'll just work themselves out.
27:59I honestly think that's the way that he looked at it.
28:01He really just looked at himself as thinking
28:03that he was going to get away with this.
28:05Well, I think that he was under the impression
28:07nobody's ever going to imagine
28:09that I would kill my own mother.
28:12But there was one particularly damning piece of evidence
28:15found in Daniel's bedroom,
28:17which made it all too easy to believe
28:19he was capable of murder.
28:21Daniel Barklam wrote a script
28:24in which he was the central character
28:27and he killed his mother.
28:30And he set fire to the body
28:32and he made it look like an intruder had killed her.
28:36Police found that on his computer.
28:39He deleted it.
28:40So he thought that nobody would know
28:43that he'd actually thought about killing his own mother.
28:47and what was something that was a work of fiction
28:51became reality.
28:54You wrote stories about him being the most famous soap star ever
28:57and being in the soap for 50 years
28:59and Daniel Barklam,
29:01his longest running soap star,
29:03famous this, famous that.
29:05So he wanted to be,
29:06I think he wanted to be famous, notoriously famous,
29:09but I don't think anyone could have actually predicted
29:12that this is what he would do.
29:13Yeah.
29:14I mean, that's the thing I find most difficult to deal with,
29:17the fact that he'd planned it.
29:21After denying it for weeks,
29:23Daniel, faced with the new evidence against him,
29:26admitted to killing his mum
29:28and told the police an entirely different version of events.
29:33On the day of the murder,
29:35Daniel had argued with his mother earlier in the day.
29:37She'd gone to bed.
29:38About one in the morning,
29:40he storms into her bedroom
29:42and they have a flaming argument about some trainers,
29:45some new trainers he can't find.
29:48As a result of that,
29:49he's taken a hammer,
29:50he's hit her about the head multiple times,
29:54many times fracturing both her skull and her face.
29:58He's then set the fire in the room
30:00and disappeared out of the house with his brother and the dog.
30:10I've been doing this job since 2004.
30:12I've investigated well over 50 to 100 deliberate fires
30:17where we've had somebody die, so in effect a murder.
30:20This is the only one I can recall
30:22that actually involved a teenage suspect.
30:25For me, it was quite surprising.
30:27You've got such a young child
30:29that was capable of committing such a crime.
30:32A lot of red flags, right?
30:34A lot of red flags.
30:36I've got to ask you,
30:38do you think this could have been prevented?
30:40Yes.
30:42Yeah, definitely.
30:46Daniel had scripted the whole thing.
30:48This wasn't a spare-of-the-moment reaction
30:51or a fit of rage.
30:53This was a planned murder.
30:55But why on earth would a 14-year-old boy
30:58want to carry out such a calculated killing?
31:03People who have psychopathic traits,
31:05it's as if they don't have the break.
31:08They don't have a break on their behaviour
31:10because when you and I see distress,
31:12it puts a break on.
31:13We stop.
31:14But it isn't in itself a motive to do harm.
31:19People who are psychopaths
31:21just don't stop from doing harm.
31:23This case, killing his mother,
31:25to me is completely mysterious
31:27and without motive.
31:29Can children be psychopaths?
31:31It's a really difficult question
31:33because, of course, a child is still developing
31:36and you don't want to say anything set in stone
31:39with a child.
31:40But it's clear that adults
31:42who have lots of psychopathic traits
31:45typically showed those
31:46even when they were much younger.
31:48And there are children who are callous
31:51and unemotional and don't show remorse,
31:53just like those adult psychopaths.
31:58Has Daniel got the intelligence
31:59to know the difference between reality and fantasy?
32:03A lot of people have said to me about this case,
32:05well, surely this young lad didn't know
32:07what he was doing.
32:08He didn't know the difference
32:09between right and wrong, facts and fiction.
32:11Of course he did.
32:12It's been proven that he was not suffering
32:14from any mental illness.
32:15He knew what he was doing.
32:17He knew what he was doing was wrong,
32:18but he chose to do it anyway.
32:20The 14-year-old boy now had to await his trial.
32:24Daniel was going to plead not guilty.
32:27This was an unprecedented case.
32:30The first case of its kind
32:32where I've certainly covered
32:35a child murderer at that age
32:37and the sheer brutality of it.
32:41Savage killing of his own mother.
32:44The woman that brought him into the world.
32:47The fact that he was capable of doing that
32:49is tragic.
32:50If the prosecution couldn't prove
32:51that Daniel had killed Jackie on purpose,
32:53he was going to get away with murder.
32:57On the 4th of October 2011, Daniel Bartlem pleaded not guilty
33:18to the murder of his mother Jackie.
33:20Despite having bludgeoned her to death with a hammer,
33:23the 14-year-old claimed that he had been provoked.
33:27His trial began on January the 23rd, 2012.
33:31I have covered hundreds of cases,
33:34Nottingham Crown Court,
33:36and I have never had a young boy of that age
33:41charged with such a horrific crime.
33:44It was a senseless killing
33:47and to write about it,
33:50although you remain composed,
33:52you can't help but be affected by what he did.
34:00And it was quite draining, really, the whole thing.
34:03Because you've got this kid up on the dock who's 14.
34:10And he's, you know, he's on trial for murder.
34:14Not this big streetwise thug, gangster sort of type.
34:19Just a normal kid that you'd see on the street.
34:23You wouldn't look at him twice.
34:25You know, he's just a normal, normal-looking, you know,
34:29somewhat, I suppose, geeky child.
34:32It was shocking, I think, for everybody concerned,
34:38that this young boy who sat very meekly in the dock,
34:44who then, when gave evidence,
34:46became quite arrogant when he was cross-examined by the prosecution.
34:51There were no flies on him.
34:53He gave as good as he got,
34:55but on first impressions in the dock,
34:57he just looked like this young, helpless boy
35:01that was completely out of his depth.
35:03Why stick to the story in the trial?
35:06Why not say, yes, I did it?
35:08Why deny it?
35:09Well, I think because he's still got that arrogance.
35:12He still thinks that he could potentially get away with it.
35:16So he's just sticking rigidly to the story.
35:19It's like the child that's done something naughty.
35:22Did you eat that cookie?
35:23Mouth covered in chocolate? No. No. No.
35:26And until you confront them with the evidence,
35:29then they're going to stick to that,
35:30and I think that's the case here.
35:32Did he look at you?
35:34It went like that to me, towards the end of the trial.
35:40Which I didn't find intimidating.
35:43I just found it to be...
35:48Him, Daniel being Daniel, probably being defiant,
35:51thinking he was, you know, could do what he wants again.
35:54He would look down a lot,
35:55he would put his head in his hands a lot,
35:58but not because he was remorseful for what he did.
36:01His head was in his hands, but peeping through,
36:04like you'd do with a little kid, you know.
36:06Make a face at them around the back of your hands,
36:08and they'd make them laugh.
36:09He was head down, but then trying to look through
36:13to see who was watching him.
36:15All, in my opinion, it was all for a show.
36:18No remorse, no crying, no nothing.
36:20It was just, can't be bothered with this sort of thing.
36:26After two weeks, the jury reached a decision.
36:29Daniel was guilty.
36:34So when the jury came back with the verdict,
36:36Daniel Bartlum hung his head and looked like he was about to cry,
36:41put his head in his hands.
36:43And at that moment, I think he realised
36:46that his life was effectively over.
36:49On April the 2nd, 2012, Daniel was sentenced to life imprisonment.
36:59He'll serve a minimum of 16 years.
37:01But this so-called devil child could be out before he's 30,
37:05with most of his life ahead of him.
37:07Can you explain what the journey would be from being sentenced there in court,
37:16and where he would end up?
37:18Very often, these sorts of children go straight into a young offender institution,
37:22run by the prison service, staffed by prison officers.
37:25And the children spend the majority of their time in their cells.
37:30Their education is scant.
37:33And the ability to access psychological, psychiatric support is virtually impossible.
37:42You know, I think about him, for example, in a men's prison.
37:46Because presumably that's where he is now.
37:49I just wonder how he would survive in the prison.
37:52What his, you know...
37:54Concerned?
37:55No.
37:57If someone were to tell me tomorrow something had happened to him in prison,
38:01I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't be concerned about all his welfare.
38:06It's just so many unanswered questions.
38:08It might be a bit two-faced, really, but it's just...
38:12Maybe it's the not knowing, not knowing where he is,
38:15or not knowing how he's getting on.
38:17Maybe it's that.
38:20How does somebody like Daniel cope in that circumstance, that transition?
38:25I imagine that he will cope very badly.
38:28He is likely to be bullied, victimised, and he'll retreat into a shell,
38:34and he'll have to survive, or he won't survive.
38:39Daniel will be eligible for release in 2028.
38:44But it won't happen if he's judged to still be a danger to others.
38:49Malcolm, the question is, can someone like Daniel be rehabilitated?
38:53And if so, how?
38:56Well, I can answer the question confidently.
38:59Yes, they can, because there are plenty of examples of children who have committed,
39:05not necessarily matricide, but high-profile cases like that.
39:09Are they dangerous? Yes.
39:10And have they been rehabilitated? Yes.
39:13And by that I mean, have they been released satisfactorily, got a job, had a family, and settled down,
39:20and no-one's ever heard of them again?
39:22Yes, there have been plenty of examples of that.
39:24So, in principle, the answer is yes.
39:26In his case, because it's hypothetical, what you would have to do is to work with him,
39:32and educate him, and attend to whatever special needs there are, and whatever factors there are,
39:41which contributed to the commission of that offence.
39:44I don't see how somebody who could plan that, at that age, so well, if you like,
39:54could or should be allowed out again.
39:58Yeah.
40:00And that's not because I want to see him rot for the rest of his life.
40:04I just don't believe, personally, that anyone who's done that should be allowed to be a rehabilitator.
40:14And in the case of Daniel Barclam, would you say that he was a victim of nature or nurture?
40:22So, they're, as far as we know, a pretty loving family.
40:27Of course, a marriage splitting up, but that's not unusual.
40:30So, there's not a lot of nurture that we can see being a problem there.
40:34I think that I'm worried about psychotic experiences there.
40:38I'm worried about something that probably is more genetic,
40:42but obviously without knowing the individual, hard to tell.
40:45Yes.
40:47I think it's a combination of both.
40:49I think that Daniel is somebody who probably came into the world with particular traits,
40:54with particular tendencies, but I think he's been in an environment where they haven't been suppressed,
41:00they've not been challenged, they've not been confronted, and unfortunately, you've got the perfect storm.
41:06You just go through each day and you just try and piece the facts together yourself,
41:16and unfortunately, you make, you know, you make your own, fill your own blanks in sometimes.
41:20That was something you did until you got the facts?
41:23I still do, because obviously, nobody can know the real facts.
41:28There's only one person alive that can really fill in the blanks of what actually happened that night, isn't there?
41:35He's not going to tell, you know, he's not told anyone to this day what exactly happened that night.
41:42We only know what's been assumed and what's been pieced together.
41:45Do you love Daniel?
41:47No.
41:48Don't hate him either.
41:50You don't love him, you don't hate him.
41:53What is it you feel?
41:55Nothing.
41:57Just non-existent.
42:03I've got no feelings for him at all.
42:05I don't know if I ever did have any feelings for him.
42:10I don't honestly think I ever loved Daniel.
42:12I didn't dislike him, but it's a fine line, isn't it?
42:16I don't hate him.
42:19Just nothing doesn't exist to me, really.
42:24Do you think his mother, if she was here today, could forgive him?
42:31I can't answer that for Jackie.
42:33I don't think that's...
42:34I can't answer that.
42:35I believe in forgiveness.
42:38But there's some things you can forgive and some things you can't.
42:44Daniel Bartland was just 14 years old when he murdered his mother in cold blood.
42:54There was no doubt it was a calculated decision, even though it was made by an immature boy.
43:01As to why he did it?
43:03Well, only one person knows the answer to that question.
43:06Daniel.
43:07Daniel.