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Britain's Most Evil Killers S02E01 Mick Philpott
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00:00On Friday the 11th of May 2012,
00:06a fire ripped through a family home in Derby in the East Midlands.
00:11Trapped inside and fast asleep were six young children.
00:16The fire brigade were in the house, flashing lights everywhere.
00:20I pushed to the front of the house,
00:22and I could see the firefighters bringing the children out,
00:26some in blankets.
00:28And the ambulance were trying to resuscitate some of them.
00:33Firefighters and paramedics battled in vain to save their lives.
00:38All six children died. The youngest was just five years old.
00:43The damage to the house is drastic,
00:46and there is no way that those poor six children
00:50could possibly have escaped.
00:52Smoke inhalation alone would have been deadly.
00:55But this was no accident.
00:57As Mick Philpott, the children's father,
01:00wept in front of the British public,
01:02he was hiding a sinister secret.
01:04He had deliberately started the fire.
01:07I think that the most tragic part of this case
01:10is the fact that six children's lives were lost
01:13in Mick Philpott's attempts to basically rescue his own ego.
01:19Mick Philpott had set out to look like a hero,
01:22but he'd ended up as one of Britain's most evil killers.
01:26As news broke across Britain in May 2012,
01:41that six young children had died inside a burning family home
01:59on Victory Road in Allent and Derby,
02:02the entire nation were in shock.
02:04The parents, 56-year-old Mick Philpott and his wife,
02:0931-year-old Mirade, were unharmed but completely heartbroken.
02:14Their five sons and one daughter,
02:16aged between 5 and 13 years old, were dead.
02:20Former neighbor to the Philpott's, Daniel Stevenson,
02:24witnessed the horrific event.
02:26My brother woke me up, and that's when I looked out the window,
02:30seeing thick black smoke coming from the house.
02:34I got out of bed, got dressed, got pajamas on,
02:37the trainers ran out the door, went straight to the property.
02:40Just wanted to help, so there was no way
02:43of getting in through the front, so I went round the back,
02:45climbed over the caravan, dropped down the other side,
02:48got into the back garden, and I see Mick and Mirade there,
02:52and just crying, screaming, shouting.
02:55Despite brave attempts from the emergency services,
02:59nobody could get inside.
03:01The fire was just too ferocious.
03:04Fire coming out of the letterbox,
03:05fire coming from around the sides of the doors.
03:08By the time it was safe to enter the house,
03:11it was too late.
03:13Five of the children, 10-year-old Jade and her brothers,
03:16John, Jack, Jessie, and Jayden, had all lost their lives.
03:2213-year-old Dwayne died later at hospital.
03:26However, it wasn't a tragic accident.
03:29Unbelievably, the house fire was part of a deliberate plan.
03:34Mick Philpott had masterminded everything for his own benefit.
03:39I think that Mick Philpott did an incredibly evil,
03:42an incredibly selfish thing.
03:44He was essentially looking to get revenge
03:47for a perceived wrong against him by a woman
03:49who he thought was under his control.
03:52His story begins over 60 years ago.
03:58Mick Philpott was born in 1956.
04:02He grew up in Derby as part of a large Roman Catholic family.
04:07It would have been an environment in which his parents' attention
04:10was diluted across many children,
04:13so he wouldn't have been the center of attention by any means.
04:16And we know that his mother worked very hard.
04:19She had a job at a factory that she only retired from
04:23when she was quite old.
04:25So he didn't appear to come from an unusual background
04:28by any means.
04:30In 1975, age 19, Philpott joined the army.
04:35He began to show signs of a violent temper,
04:37especially towards his girlfriends.
04:40It would repeatedly land him in trouble.
04:42Local journalist Martin Naylor recalls the events that led
04:46to Philpott being arrested in 1978.
04:50When Mick was a youngster, I think 19 or 20, maybe 21,
04:55he ended up with a conviction for attempted murder
04:57for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
05:00The story with that is that he had a girlfriend back in Derby.
05:03He was stationed wherever his regiment were.
05:06She'd had the temerity to sending a dear John letter,
05:09ending their relationship.
05:11So he decided to go AWOL from the army,
05:14rock up at her house in Derby and attack her with a knife.
05:18And then when her mother tried to intervene,
05:20he attacked the mother too.
05:22Despite his seven-year sentence for attempted murder
05:25and grievous bodily harm,
05:27Philpott served just over three years.
05:30He was released in 1981.
05:33From that point onwards, Philpott set about controlling
05:37every woman he had any contact with,
05:40and to do so in the most outrageous way.
05:44Those who knew Philpott were surprised to hear
05:47just how violent his past had been.
05:50I know Mick can handle himself,
05:53so, like, if anyone was intimidating towards him,
05:57he wasn't afraid to pump his chest down,
06:00stand up to him and so forth.
06:02So I know he had quite a strong, like, reaction
06:06when people kind of pushed him.
06:09The bit that shocked me was, um,
06:11I didn't know that he tried to kill his ex-partner.
06:15After his release from prison,
06:17Philpott had a series of volatile relationships.
06:21In 1986, at the age of 30,
06:23he got married for the first time
06:25and fathered two sons and a daughter.
06:28He later had two more children with a teenage girlfriend
06:32and began to have several relationships simultaneously.
06:36By the time he was 50,
06:38Philpott had fathered a total of 17 children.
06:42I think he would have gone for any woman to go for him,
06:44but in his case, he went for younger girls,
06:47usually girls who were very upset and down and depressed,
06:51either because they came out of a bad relationship
06:54or they were mistreated by their parents.
06:57Um, girls that had no self-esteem.
06:59You can pick them out of a crowd, you know.
07:01They, they think they're, they're ugly,
07:03they think that they're inadequate,
07:04they think that they cannot have a boyfriend,
07:06that everybody hates them, that the world hates them.
07:08They, all they need is a little bit of love,
07:11is somebody to, to be there
07:13and show them that they are beautiful,
07:15that they matter, that they are somebody.
07:18And, and he knew how to do that.
07:20He would approach the girls that were like,
07:22and the lowest they could be.
07:23And he would be that person.
07:25In 2000, he met Mary Duffy,
07:27a 19-year-old single mother.
07:29Um, but within a year, he'd met a 16-year-old
07:33who became another of his conquests.
07:36She, too, was a single mother at 16.
07:40In 2003, Philpott marries Mary Duffy,
07:45but keeps his full-time live-in mistress.
07:48In fact, she's the bridesmaid at the marriage
07:53to Mary Duffy.
07:55It becomes a ménage a trois, both bearing his children,
07:58living in a council house in Allenton, near Derby.
08:02They are, well, one could only describe it as extraordinary.
08:06Mick Philpott was a man who was incredibly manipulative,
08:09incredibly controlling,
08:11and had managed to basically convince these two women
08:14over a course of several years that this was, you know,
08:17a really good thing,
08:19that actually they were lucky to have some of his attention.
08:22In 2006, 50-year-old Mick Philpott was unemployed
08:27and living on benefits in a council house
08:29with his wife, Myraid, his mistress, Lisa,
08:32and their ever-growing, far-from-traditional family.
08:36He had approached us as the telegraph to say
08:39that he was living in the house with his wife
08:42and his then-girlfriend.
08:45They had children together.
08:46There were lots of them there,
08:47and he wanted a bigger council house.
08:49So we thought that by coming to his local newspaper,
08:51he would get a bigger council house.
08:53So we ran the story.
08:54The following day, it was picked up on by all the Nationals,
08:58especially some of the more right-leaning ones,
09:00as you'd imagine.
09:01One of them, I think one of the tabloids,
09:03dubbed him Shameless Mick,
09:04and the kind of the media frenzy rollercoaster
09:07went on from there.
09:09In 2007, Philpott appeared on the Jeremy Kyle Show
09:14to talk about his large family and his lifestyle.
09:17He began to draw attention from the general public.
09:21He becomes quite famous as a benefits scrounger
09:26because he significantly never has a job
09:29and is claiming at 1.60,000 a year in benefits,
09:32as well as being given a house under.
09:35He parks a caravan, effectively,
09:37at the side of the semi-detached council house
09:40he's living in, in which he alternates.
09:43He sleeps there one night with the wife, Marie Duffy,
09:46and the next night with his mistress,
09:48as though he's some kind of emperor.
09:51I think that Mick Philpott breathes the oxygen of publicity.
09:54I think he absolutely regales in being the center of attention.
09:58He loves being talked about.
10:00And I don't think the nature of attention matters very much to him.
10:04It doesn't matter if it's positive attention or negative attention
10:07as long as people are talking about him.
10:09Philpott enjoyed his newfound fame
10:12and went on to appear in other television programs.
10:16He then participated in a program about benefits culture
10:19with the MP, Ann Widdecombe,
10:21and he would have been absolutely loving the attention.
10:24He was basically having his malevolent ego fed from every angle here.
10:29But what he really didn't care about
10:31was the impact that this had on his family.
10:33His kids were bullied at school because of the attention
10:36that they got through him being in the press.
10:39His partner and his wife
10:42were basically labeled as stupid and ignorant.
10:45But that didn't matter.
10:46As long as people were talking about him,
10:48that's all that he cared about.
10:49I wish I found it comical. I found it despicable.
10:52There is nothing about it that I find admirable.
10:55Philpott saw himself as some kind of grand figure,
10:59effectively bragging about his success with women,
11:03his success in scrounging on the benefits.
11:06Mick Philpott is somebody who has to be in control.
11:09He has always got to be the one making the decisions,
11:12and other people basically have to pander to his every whim.
11:15Philpott's wife and mistress both worked as part-time cleaners.
11:20But far from being a source of their own income
11:22and a source of independence for them,
11:24he would basically take all of their wages.
11:27He would be the one who drove them to work,
11:30dropped them off, and picked them up.
11:32He wanted to be fully in control of these women's lives.
11:35They didn't even have their own house keys.
11:37In 2012, 56-year-old Mick Philpott was living with his wife,
11:43his mistress, and their 11 children in a council house in Derbyshire.
11:48By now, Philpott was known nationally as a benefits scrounger.
11:53He abused and controlled his women
11:55and used his children to get more handouts.
11:58But behind closed doors,
12:00not everybody was happy with the setup.
12:03Philpott's chaotic lifestyle would soon become too much
12:07for his mistress, Lisa.
12:13In early 2012, 56-year-old Mick Philpott had become known
12:23as Shameless Mick in the tabloids.
12:26He was unemployed and living on benefits with his wife,
12:29his mistress, and their 11 children in a council house in Derbyshire.
12:34But little was known about his controlling behaviour,
12:37his volatile temper, and his obsession with sex
12:41that included regular threesomes with his wife, Mirade,
12:44and a friend, Paul Mosley.
12:47There were, like, 11 kids in the house, a small house,
12:51two sexual partners,
12:53and he used to bring a friend for sex parties and stuff.
12:57It's a horrible environment,
12:59with the kids in the house and stuff, and you're doing all this.
13:01So it doesn't take an expert to realize, okay,
13:04this is not a good situation.
13:06And these sexual exploits of Mick and Mirade
13:09didn't stop at home.
13:11There was an incident where they went out dogging
13:13in Allestery Park.
13:14You know, people who live in Derby and know Derby
13:16and know that Allestery is a relatively affluent area.
13:19And to hear that, you know, people have been going there
13:23to watch other people having sex in cars,
13:25sort of comes across as quite a shock.
13:27And so it was, it was seedy.
13:31In February 2012, Philpott's mistress, Lisa,
13:35decided she'd had enough of life in the dysfunctional household.
13:40She moved out with her five children and demanded custody.
13:44A lot of people won't have that courage,
13:46but she just decided, look, enough is enough.
13:49She did the right thing.
13:50She didn't go up to him and say, I'm leaving you,
13:52because I think if she tried doing that,
13:54he would overpower her because he was a violent person.
13:56And say, no, you're not leaving, or maybe lock her in.
13:59He would have done something.
14:01But she did the right thing.
14:03She walked away first and then sent them a message
14:05and said, I'm gone, you know.
14:07And then he couldn't find her anymore.
14:09This was a point at which Lisa had decided
14:11to take control, to take her children,
14:13and to go to a women's refuge.
14:15And the key thing here is that Mick hadn't decided
14:18that that was okay.
14:20He was the one that decided when relationships were over.
14:23He was the one that decided what happened on a daily basis.
14:26So the fact that Lisa had betrayed him
14:29by taking that power away from him,
14:31it was only going to result in something
14:33really alarming in return.
14:35Lisa moving out left financial implications for Philpott.
14:40Not only did he lose her income as a cleaner,
14:42but also the benefits he received for their children.
14:46The custody hearing was set for May the 11th.
14:49Philpott concocted a plan to ensure that children
14:52would be returned to Victory Road.
14:55Out of the vanity and arrogance of the man,
14:58together with his wife, Maraid, and Paul Moseley,
15:02the kind of live-in, sometime lover,
15:05they hatch a scheme to set fire to the house in Victory Road
15:10in an effort to provoke the council to give him a bigger house,
15:15but also to blame his mistress.
15:19She will not get the custody of the children.
15:21It is an extraordinary, bizarre plan.
15:26I think Maraid was very much under Mick Philpott's control
15:29at this point in time.
15:30I think he would have, um, quite easily have talked her around
15:34into actually being a part of this.
15:36It was a badly devised plan.
15:38To me, what convinced him is his own stupidity.
15:41He was self-absorbed.
15:42He thought that he was the king.
15:44You know, he could, he got all the girls he wanted,
15:47and he could control them and everything.
15:49And maybe Philpott thought that he was that intelligent,
15:52that he, it was that easy to devise a plan
15:55that he could get back on the girl.
15:57So he probably sat down, wrote down the plan very quickly,
16:00this is what we're gonna do, right?
16:02Very easy.
16:03In the early hours of Friday, May the 11th, 2012,
16:08the same day as the scheduled custody hearing,
16:11Philpott, aided by his wife, Maraid,
16:14and their friend, Paul Moseley, poured petrol
16:17through the letterbox and set the family home alight.
16:20Six of Philpott's children were sleeping upstairs.
16:24The fire that he set, that they have set between them,
16:28takes hold of a place far greater than they could possibly
16:32have conceived.
16:34And the house is literally filled with smoke
16:36in a matter of instants.
16:38In his typically vainglorious way,
16:41Philpott makes a particularly appalling 999 call,
16:47saying, my children are inside.
16:49They was on the phone to the emergency services, I believe,
16:55and they were saying, like, my house is on fire,
16:58and it was like, my baby, my baby,
17:00and obviously they told the emergency services,
17:03my neighbours, my neighbours here.
17:05It was very, like, misty,
17:06because everything's just happening so fast.
17:08I attempted to go into the house.
17:10I got as far as the kitchen, couldn't go any further.
17:13The smoke was just too thick, it was choking, black,
17:16couldn't see anything, so I had to come back out.
17:18There was a ladders on the side going up to a window.
17:21I tried climbing up to there,
17:23and there was a ratchet in the window
17:25where Mick's been trying to smash in, I think,
17:28and there was smoke coming from that window.
17:30I then came back down the ladders,
17:32and I climbed up onto a wooden frame,
17:35what he's been building onto his conservatory.
17:38The damage to the house is drastic,
17:41and there is no way that those poor six children
17:45could possibly have escaped.
17:47Smoke inhalation alone would have been deadly.
17:50I climbed up to the window,
17:51see if any windows were open, none of them were open.
17:54Then I put one of the windows through with a wrench
17:56from the other window, chucked out the window,
17:59it smashed straight through,
18:01and then continued putting the window through
18:03with the pickaxe on the roof, smashing all the window up.
18:06I was about to climb into the property,
18:08again, couldn't see nothing, couldn't hear nothing.
18:10I couldn't hear no screams.
18:13When the fire service arrived,
18:15the desperate attempts to save the children continued.
18:19The local press soon got wind
18:21of the unfolding drama on Victory Road.
18:24I was on the early shift on the morning of the fire,
18:27and I could hear that the news desk phone was ringing,
18:29so I made a bit of a dash for it.
18:32I grabbed the phone,
18:33and it was the on-duty police press officer,
18:36and she said to me,
18:37we were just letting the local media know early
18:40that there's been a really big house fire in Allenton,
18:43and five kids are dead.
18:45Within about five or ten minutes of knowing
18:48that it was in Victory Road,
18:50I phoned the local news agent who I'd know
18:52because I'd done previous stories with him.
18:54He answered the phone, and I said,
18:56Joga, it's Martin from The Telegraph,
18:59and he said, it's McPhilpot, it's McPhilpot's house,
19:02and I didn't even have to ask him what it was about.
19:04He knew, and he'd blurted that out straight away.
19:08Shocked neighbors began to spill out onto the street
19:11as the full horror of the tragedy became apparent.
19:15I think nearly the whole street was out in the front.
19:18The fire brigade were in the house,
19:20flashing lights everywhere.
19:22I pushed to the front of the house,
19:24and I could see the firefighters bringing the children out.
19:30Some in blankets,
19:32I think they used the blankets to try and protect them a bit more.
19:38And the ambulance were trying to resuscitate some of them.
19:50I was just hoping that the kids would survive and recover.
19:55I just didn't really know what to think at the time.
19:59Didn't know what had happened,
20:01didn't know what caused the fire,
20:03just didn't know anything.
20:05Tragically, five of Philpot's children died at the scene.
20:09Ten-year-old Jade, nine-year-old John,
20:12eight-year-old Jack, six-year-old Jesse,
20:15and Jayden, who was just five years old.
20:18Their older brother, 13-year-old Duane,
20:21was rushed to hospital in a critical condition,
20:24but would later succumb to his injuries.
20:29It almost defies self-deception.
20:32It is disgraceful.
20:35But at the outset, the police believed
20:37that this is something that has genuinely a tragedy.
20:41Six children, no adults in the house.
20:44You might ask,
20:45why weren't there any adults in the house?
20:47Forensic experts arrived at the scene
20:50and began to look for clues
20:51to determine the source of the fire.
20:54Daniel Matthews was part of the team.
20:57Mostly, the house was pretty much undamaged.
20:59The roof was intact, the walls were intact.
21:02The front door was noticeably more damaged than anywhere else.
21:06And also, the window on the landing,
21:08there was a small window on the landing upstairs
21:10that had been damaged by the fire and had dropped out.
21:14But apart from that,
21:15the only way you could really tell there was a fire at the house
21:17was by small signs of some soot coming out from the vents
21:20at the top of some of the double-glazed windows.
21:22The fire had started in the entrance hallway
21:24behind the front door.
21:25And from there, it had spread a little bit into the living room,
21:29but mostly it had spread up the stairs.
21:31The window at the very top of the stairs was open a little bit,
21:34and that had been breached by the fire.
21:36Now, obviously, fire tends to go up and out.
21:39So, effectively, the stairwell from a fire in there
21:41would act almost like a chimney in the middle of the fire,
21:44and the hot gases and the fumes would all go, mostly go upstairs.
21:47In cooperation with the fire investigators,
21:50the forensic team needed to find out if the blaze was accidental
21:54or if someone had started it on purpose.
21:57We had an arson dog hand-log with us that day,
21:59and that dog is trained to indicate on various different
22:02ignitable liquids such as petrol, diesel, white spirits,
22:05and the things that we commonly see in arsons.
22:09And the dog clearly indicated that he thought something was present.
22:13So we would take a sample from that area,
22:15and then it would be sent for analysis,
22:17and the analysis determined that petrol was there.
22:20When I'd completed my scene examination,
22:22I was able to say that the fire had been started deliberately.
22:25The arson on Victory Road had led to the deaths of six children.
22:30Nick Philpott's dastardly plan had backfired in the most tragic fashion.
22:35The entire nation was horrified.
22:38As the community joined together in grief with the Philpott family,
22:42they rallied round, determined to find out who was responsible.
22:47Little did they know the killers were right in front of their faces,
22:51basking in the full glare of the media spotlight.
22:55As the sun rose on the morning of Friday, May the 11th, 2012,
23:09the true horror of the house fire on Victory Road in Derby became apparent.
23:14Investigations had revealed that the blaze which had killed six children
23:19had been started deliberately.
23:21Bereaved father Mick Philpott had seemingly made desperate attempts to save them.
23:27But in reality, he had orchestrated the whole thing
23:31to try and win custody of five of his other children from his former mistress.
23:37I think Philpott thought that nobody would ever leave him because he was so amazing.
23:42So I think it was a combination of everything.
23:44When somebody leaves you, there's another thing that happens to the human brain.
23:49It's like jealousy automatically happens, right?
23:53For one reason, we are all, and in Philpott's case even more,
23:59because he was so self-absorbed, you think you are the best thing on earth.
24:03Mick Philpott's plan was essentially to exact revenge on Lisa.
24:07He moved from trying to control her by keeping her in a relationship with him
24:13to trying to destroy her for leaving it.
24:15He was vile towards her.
24:17He made threats towards her through other people.
24:20She was incredibly frightened.
24:22And what he was trying to do was essentially create a story,
24:26create a set of events that he could blame her for.
24:29I think what convinced him that this thing would work was himself,
24:32you know, his stupidity and his self-absorption that he thought,
24:36I'm too good, this plan is infallible.
24:39On Saturday, the 12th of May, the day after the fire,
24:44Philpott's ex-mistress Lisa and her brother-in-law
24:48were arrested on suspicion of starting the blaze.
24:51It seemed that Philpott's plan to frame her was working out,
24:55but they were soon released without charge.
25:00Police were treating the deliberate fire
25:02as a murder investigation after it was confirmed
25:05that Petrel had been found inside the letterbox.
25:09The police start to talk to the neighbors who point out
25:12that Philpott is this conceited pig of a man,
25:16and they begin to put together what actually happened.
25:20They find evidence of a petrol can, they find a glove.
25:25Detectives began to grow suspicious of the Philpott's
25:29and their possible motives.
25:31On Wednesday, the 16th of May, 2012,
25:35Mick Philpott held an emotional press conference,
25:38unaware that he was the police's number one suspect.
25:43Didn't Philpott know that the police has experts on reading people?
25:48You know, they have people who are trained for years
25:51on reading, um, body language, facial expressions,
25:54eye movement, voice intonation, you know, everything.
25:58Philpott appeared to be distraught when he faced the cameras
26:02with a visibly grief-stricken mirade.
26:05He started to thank people who tried to help
26:07on the night of the fire.
26:09And, of course, it's the four firemen,
26:11the police, the ambulances, the doctors, the nurses,
26:14literally everybody who tried to help save their children
26:20and they couldn't.
26:23One intrigued viewer was body language expert Robert Phipps.
26:28Mick Philpott is very controlled throughout the whole interview,
26:31making a point of thanking everybody else
26:34but not really mentioning the children that have just died.
26:37The signals that he gives off are not in the normal range
26:41of somebody expressing grief, anxiety, sadness,
26:44which he should do, having just lost his children.
26:47Somebody normally expressing grief,
26:49you would see contorting of the face,
26:51not just one consistent look.
26:54And this is what you have with Mick,
26:55it's one consistent look throughout the whole thing.
26:58His face is not going through the turmoil,
27:00as compared to Mirade,
27:02who you see her eyebrows are moving,
27:04her forehead has got different wrinkles in it,
27:06her face is just contorted with pain.
27:09We don't see any of that from Mick.
27:11If ever evidence were needed of Philpott's capacity
27:17for being disingenuous, for convincing the world,
27:20and I suspect himself into the bargain,
27:23that he alone was right,
27:25it was in the classic case of his crocodile tears
27:29during the televised press conference.
27:32Those tears were yet further evidence
27:37of his capacity for self-delusion,
27:40which is one of the hallmarks of his life,
27:42along with the capacity to believe
27:44that he alone can dictate what happens to the world.
27:47Right from the beginning,
27:48Mick Philpott's body language
27:50is inconsistent with somebody showing grief.
27:52His blinking rate is far, far too high.
27:55The normal range is around about 20, 25 blinks per minute.
27:59We counted in this as much as 80 to 90 blinks a minute.
28:03This is showing his nervousness.
28:05Mick is dabbing away with his tissue here
28:07to imaginary tears.
28:09They're not there,
28:10therefore the tissue itself doesn't get wet,
28:13it doesn't crumple.
28:14If you look at that in comparison to Mirade's tissue,
28:17it's all crumpled,
28:18because she is actually expressing tears,
28:20real, genuine tears.
28:22If you look at the lines on their forehead,
28:24these are just straight lines.
28:26There's no expression.
28:27These are his normal, everyday lines.
28:29If you look at Mirade's face,
28:31she's raised her eyebrows,
28:33they've come in,
28:34so she's got a furrowed brow,
28:35and she's pulling these eyebrows in,
28:37which shows the pain that she's going through.
28:39You can also see the way her mouth is contorted
28:43and changing with each expression of different emotions.
28:47Mick is consistent all the way through.
28:50One thing that they don't do
28:52throughout the entire press conference
28:54is appeal for help.
28:56Who set this fire?
28:57Who killed these children?
28:59Why?
29:01Because he knows he did it.
29:03It wasn't just the police who were suspicious.
29:06Philpott's performance had baffled the onlooking press, too.
29:10At the end of it,
29:12I got in the car to drive back to the office,
29:14and I thought,
29:15that's not right.
29:16Something's not right about that.
29:18He's not once mentioned the children.
29:20He's not mentioned them by name.
29:22He's not looked into any cameras and said,
29:24please, will someone out there help me find out who's done this?
29:29It's a suspicious fire in his own home,
29:31and not once has he made an appeal to the public,
29:34to anyone who's watching, you know,
29:36please, anyone with information, come forward.
29:38Not once.
29:39So then I got back to the office,
29:41and as I walked in,
29:42I could see everyone was still stood around the TV,
29:46and we all looked at each other,
29:48and that was the moment that we all knew,
29:50you know, you know, something's wrong here.
29:53This is a game changer.
29:55Disingenuous would be a polite way of describing it.
30:00It is typical of a man who believes he alone rules the world.
30:06He is an emperor of everything he surveys.
30:09He is a man whose vanity knows no bounds,
30:12a man for whom he is the center of the universe,
30:15which in the end convinced the police
30:19that he wasn't telling the truth,
30:21that he seemed so capable of this kind of sleight of hand.
30:26He may have convinced himself,
30:28but he didn't convince many other people.
30:29I think he's such a narcissist.
30:31He's so arrogant,
30:32and he thinks he's gotten away with it,
30:35that he thinks he's invincible.
30:37He thinks that his act,
30:39as he's fooled many women over the years,
30:41is going to fool the rest of us,
30:43and it certainly didn't.
30:44The residents of Victory Road,
30:47who'd rallied round the family,
30:49also started to wonder what was going on.
30:52His behaviour was strange.
30:56He did ask me if he felt for the police.
30:59He said he thought the police was blaming him.
31:02He did say that to me.
31:04They think he did it and stuff like that.
31:0788 officers working on the case
31:10had taken over 5,000 statements from local residents,
31:14some of which suggested that the police themselves
31:17had made more of an effort to save the six children
31:20than the Philpots.
31:22On May the 29th, 2012,
31:2518 days after the fatal blaze,
31:28Mick Philpott and his wife, Mirade,
31:30were arrested on suspicion of murder.
31:33And, again, that was another strange scenario
31:37because I was sat at my desk
31:40and a press release pings into my inbox
31:43that says a 56-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman
31:47had been arrested on suspicion of murder
31:49in connection with the Victory Road fire,
31:51and immediately I stood up and I shouted over to the news desk
31:56that the Philpots had been arrested on suspicion of murder.
32:01And that was the second time in two weeks
32:04that we ran a special edition of the newspaper,
32:06and that had never happened before.
32:08Although the police wouldn't confirm on the record
32:10that this is who it was,
32:11we got confirmation via other sources that it, you know,
32:14if we said it's the Philpots that's been arrested,
32:16would we be wrong? No.
32:18The following day, May the 30th, 2012,
32:22Mick and Mirade Philpott were charged with the murder
32:25of their own children.
32:27Philpott's plan to take revenge on his former mistress
32:31for leaving him had failed.
32:33Instead of getting a larger council house
32:36and keeping his benefits,
32:38Mick Philpott had lost six of his children.
32:41Now he was facing a life behind bars.
32:45In May 2012, Mick and Mirade Philpott had been arrested
33:00and were in custody awaiting trial
33:02for the murder of their six children.
33:04On the 22nd of June, funeral services for 13-year-old Duane,
33:1010-year-old Jade, 9-year-old John, 8-year-old Jack,
33:156-year-old Jesse and 5-year-old Jayden
33:18were held at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Derby.
33:24In the days after the deadly fire,
33:27the local community had raised more than £15,000
33:31to pay for the funerals.
33:34Mick and Mirade Philpott were not allowed to attend.
33:38It's very close-knit, Allenton.
33:40Derby as a city is a small city,
33:43but it's a very proud city,
33:45and Allenton and some of the neighboring areas to it
33:49and some of the, I hasten to use the word poorer areas,
33:53but the less affluent areas,
33:56it's very close-knit, really close-knit.
33:58I mean, the outpouring of emotion from the community was huge.
34:03On the 5th of November, a further arrest was made.
34:07Forensic evidence had found petrol on the clothing
34:10of not just Mick and Mirade Philpott,
34:12but also their friend Paul Moseley.
34:15All three were originally charged with murder,
34:18but in December, these charges were downgraded to manslaughter.
34:22The police accepted that, although they'd started the blaze,
34:26they had not intended to kill the children.
34:29It beggars belief to me
34:31that this charge is downgraded to manslaughter
34:35because, according to the, uh, statements at the time,
34:41Philpott, his wife, and Moseley,
34:43didn't mean to kill the children.
34:46It's a tiny, semi-detached house,
34:48and you've got six small children,
34:50and you've set fire to it.
34:52How can you not expect at least one of those children to die?
34:57It defies belief to me.
35:00At a hearing on December the 17th,
35:03all three pleaded not guilty to manslaughter,
35:06meaning a trial would have to take place.
35:09On the 12th of February, 2013, at Nottingham Crown Court,
35:14prosecutors set out to prove that Mick Philpott
35:17had made a plan that went horribly wrong.
35:20Local reporter Martin Naylor was in the courtroom.
35:24I remember Mick when he gave evidence
35:26talking about hearing a whooshing noise.
35:28When you light petrol, you're not lighting the fluid.
35:31You're lighting the fumes that's come off it,
35:33and in the time that it had taken for someone
35:35to put the petrol through the letterbox,
35:37and then for someone, probably him, to light it,
35:41you know, this vapor was all up in the air.
35:43There was a huge whoosh.
35:45What he was describing was the whoosh of the fire
35:48going and flying up the stairs.
35:50Now, those stairs had also been recently painted with,
35:53I think, a yacht varnish or yacht paint,
35:55which is highly flammable.
35:57So the children, although there were working smoke alarms
36:00in there, they had no chance.
36:02They literally had no chance.
36:04And obviously, the cause of death was the effects
36:08of smoke inhalation.
36:09Forensic expert Daniel Matthews was called
36:12to give evidence.
36:14I did some DNA work on the petrol cans that were found,
36:17and I did some DNA work on some items of clothing
36:19that were found in the house to determine whether or not
36:22they could have been worn by occupants of the house.
36:24And I did some microscopic burn damage examination,
36:27which would have potentially indicated whether a wearer
36:30of some items of clothing could have been close
36:32to an ignitable liquid when it was ignited.
36:35But because of the ferocity of the fire,
36:38no evidence remained inside the house.
36:41However, traces of petrol had been found on all three
36:45of the defendant's clothes.
36:47In one of the trial's key moments,
36:50Mick Philpott was asked to give his version of the events
36:53from the night that led to the tragic death
36:56of six of his own children.
36:58When Mick took the stand, he was the showman that he always was.
37:02Again, he was crying or supposedly crying in the dark.
37:06But the prosecution saw through all that.
37:09I don't think there was one single thing that nailed him.
37:13I think it was just the case just built up and built up and built
37:16and was so strong, it was almost like piling bricks on top of him,
37:20just waiting for him to collapse.
37:22And I think his collapse came in his cross-examination
37:25because his denials were just absolutely ripped apart.
37:28During the trial, what we've got to remember
37:31is that this is essentially another stage
37:33on which Mick Philpott performs.
37:36He is playing to an audience.
37:38There are several outbursts of anger.
37:41And when his relatives shout at him in court,
37:45he shouts back at them,
37:46and he sticks his middle finger up to them.
37:48So he really is incredibly defiant.
37:51He's incredibly showmanlike in his personality.
37:55He wants to be the center of attention.
37:57He knows that the media circus is still going on,
38:00and he wants to be the ringleader.
38:02On April the 2nd, 2013,
38:05after an emotionally exhausting eight-week trial,
38:08the jury found the trio guilty of manslaughter.
38:12I recall one of Mireille's sisters standing up
38:15in the public gallery and shouting to her,
38:17I knew on day one you'd done this.
38:19I knew you'd done this before storming out.
38:22It was the first time that we'd effectively live-blogged
38:25from court.
38:26We'd been given permission by the judge,
38:28and my fingers were trembling as I was, you know,
38:31typing things out to send back to the office
38:34for them to, on the website straightaway,
38:36guilty verdict, guilty verdict.
38:39On April the 4th, 2013, during sentencing,
38:43Judge Mrs. Justice Thirlwall told the trio,
38:46all three of you are responsible
38:48for the deliberate setting of that fire.
38:51All three of you are responsible for those deaths.
38:54Mireille Philpott and Paul Moseley
38:56were each sentenced to 17 years.
39:0156-year-old Mick Philpott was sentenced to life.
39:05He was immediately sent to Wakefield Prison
39:08in West Yorkshire.
39:09Mrs. Justice Thirlwall described him as
39:12a disturbingly dangerous man
39:15and as the driving force behind the wicked plan.
39:19In my opinion, Philpott should have been given
39:21a whole life term, and I do not approve of whole life terms,
39:24but I cannot think of anyone who more richly deserves
39:28to spend the rest of his life behind bars than Mick Philpott,
39:32who killed six of his own children.
39:35He is a man who deserves nothing but the greatest contempt.
39:40And I cannot understand, I will never understand,
39:43why he was not charged and convicted of murder.
39:48Upon small mercy, it is that they would probably
39:50have died very quickly,
39:52but that didn't really help the poor firefighters
39:54who had to give evidence and tell about
39:56bringing the bodies out of the house
39:57and putting them on the lawn
39:59and trying to kick them alive outside.
40:01For the neighbors who tried to rescue the children,
40:04it was an emotional moment.
40:06I was relieved that it was over.
40:08I was a bit shocked that it was him.
40:12Because if you did see him with his kids, his family,
40:15erm...
40:18Very heartbreaking.
40:21Because, er, he did...
40:23He did love his kids.
40:24He's shown that very much.
40:27I think it was some sort of ploy to get something out of.
40:32I didn't think it was meant to spread that fast a fire.
40:35I didn't think it was meant to kill anyone.
40:38I think it was a very stupid thing to do.
40:42And, unfortunately, he paid for it.
40:45The case has had a lasting effect on the nation,
40:48nowhere more so than in Derby itself.
40:52I think the initial impact was massive.
40:55I think it was huge.
40:57Certainly at the time of the fire and in the next almost year
41:01until the guilty verdict came in,
41:03it was the biggest story that Derby's ever seen.
41:07I once thought to myself and I once said
41:10that I didn't think Derby would get over this.
41:14I thought it was too big and too tragic a story
41:16for a city the size of Derby.
41:19Couldn't forget.
41:20But...but it has.
41:22And it's got stronger.
41:23The city's definitely got stronger.
41:25It's united people.
41:26And he is the common enemy of the city
41:31where he was born and raised.
41:33Philpott was the evil ringleader
41:36in a despicable plan that led to the death
41:39of six innocent children.
41:41To me, it sounds like Philpott was more upset
41:44that the plan didn't work than the loss of the kids.
41:47I think he will hit them.
41:49I think he hits any father, you know,
41:51unless you are about 100% psychopath,
41:56which is like you have zero emotions
41:58for other human beings and you pretend everything.
42:01And I don't think he was that detached.
42:04I think that Mick Philpott did an incredibly evil
42:07and an incredibly selfish thing.
42:09He was essentially looking to get revenge
42:12for a perceived wrong against him
42:14by a woman who he thought was under his control.
42:17The most tragic part of this case is the fact
42:20that six children's lives were lost in Mick Philpott's attempts
42:25to basically rescue his own ego.
42:28My view of him as a criminologist,
42:30he was an incredibly narcissistic and a very dangerous man.
42:34He was always going to result in somebody else being harmed.
42:38His actions would always lead to someone else coming to harm,
42:41because it was all about him.
42:43He never had any empathy, any concern for anybody else.
42:47There is not one single word you can find
42:49to explain or apologize for his actions.
42:52Seldom have I ever thought of someone as grotesque
42:57and as thoughtless and as vain as Philpott is.
43:03There is something about him that genuinely does send
43:06a chill down your spine.
43:08Mick Philpott is a greedy and selfish man.
43:12His lust for revenge on a woman who left him
43:15led to the death of six of his own children.
43:19He may not have meant to have killed them,
43:21but his devious plan in which he involved his wife and a friend
43:25meant that Dwayne, Jade, John, Jack, Jessie and Jaden
43:31died in the most horrific way.
43:35The city of Derby now chooses to remember them
43:38and not the name of Mick Philpott,
43:42one of Britain's most evil killers.
44:08hei and escape the DMV.
44:09They never meet another time.
44:10It's just in trouble.
44:11Aren't there one time you would see
44:13in the fighting room?
44:14Michael, Greeny?
44:15Yes.
44:16I'm Miguel, Greeny?
44:17You're out there.
44:18Yes.
44:19Yes, I'm just following the time together.
44:21OK, I'm not a wilder.
44:22You're certainly touching anyone
44:23or not being registers as well.
44:24You're again시 praying for the muerte,
44:262 years.
44:28At an inevitable,
44:28odor Frank settle down against...
44:30September 1,