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00:01Every 90 seconds, someone is reported missing.
00:06Many return to their families.
00:09For others, something has gone seriously wrong.
00:13No one has seen her or the kids around.
00:16A mum and four children have vanished in Cornwall.
00:21They go to school one day and they're not there the next.
00:25What happens in the police investigation that follows?
00:29When police started asking questions of family and friends,
00:32there was some quite shocking information that came to light.
00:35What happens to the family at its heart?
00:39It was awful. Absolutely awful.
00:43When missing turns to murder.
01:04Leslie was very caring.
01:05She was the oldest sister.
01:08We were very close.
01:09She was always there by my side.
01:12She was the one who actually looked after me at school.
01:15If I got bullied, she would sort the people out, you know.
01:18She really cared for me all my life, really.
01:22When Leslie left school, she worked in a care home.
01:26She always wanted to care for people.
01:29She just loved looking after people and being there for people all the time.
01:35It's not long before a chance encounter changes Leslie's life forever.
01:41I met Leslie when we both caught the same bus to go to our different jobs.
01:47We'd always said good morning and it progressed from there, really.
01:52It was my brother's first love, I think.
01:54They met when he was quite young.
01:56They got together.
01:59And she was excellent. She was a really good girl.
02:01She seemed happy, excited, being with Michael.
02:05They were made for each other, I think.
02:13I was 21 when I met Leslie.
02:17Three or four years later, we got married and we had children.
02:22And we planned that they would be close together, so they could all grow up together.
02:26Sarah-Jane was born in January in 1983.
02:30And Anne-Marie was born the year after.
02:33And then just over a year later, we had Stephen Paul.
02:36And then along came Craig-Jonathan.
02:39That's what we wanted. It was four lovely children together.
02:42And Leslie was bouncing off the clouds, really.
02:46Because what she always wanted was a family and a big family, really.
02:51There's only about four to five years difference between the four kids.
02:57And she was a loving mom.
02:59She wanted a football team. That's what she wanted.
03:02Everything was just brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
03:08The family eventually settle in Telford, Shropshire.
03:13But after a five-year marriage, the relationship between Leslie and Michael begins to break down.
03:21After a couple of years, I noticed things weren't right.
03:26And then one day, we sort of decided it wasn't working.
03:32So I moved out the marital home.
03:35Cracks appeared in the marriage between Michael and Leslie then.
03:39Eventually, it come to a separation, which was a bit of a shock, really.
03:43Leslie was devastated about her and Mike.
03:46Mike was her love.
03:49She was very heartbroken.
03:53Although we both knew it was hard, it wasn't actually any bad feeling as such.
04:00And eventually, Leslie met somebody else.
04:04She met Lee, Lee Ford.
04:06It just progressed from there where them two got together, basically.
04:10When I first met him, I had a little laugh to myself as such.
04:17I was very surprised she went with him.
04:19The impression of Lee was he wasn't someone I'd put in with Leslie.
04:24If I'm truthful. Like, I really wouldn't.
04:26He seemed fine. Very talkative. Seemed quite normal, really.
04:31In terms of what we know about Lee Ford, we know that he worked occasionally as a builder and a
04:37roofer.
04:38He did cash-in-hand jobs, but he also claimed benefits on the side.
04:43And initially, he seemed to relate well in his new relationship.
04:47Leslie and the children.
04:48And he even got on well with Leslie's ex-husband.
04:50But once Lee Ford got his feet under the table, things started to turn a bit ominous.
05:00Leslie and Lee got married.
05:02Then you started realizing how possessive he was and controlling he was.
05:10Leslie's family becomes suspicious about her relationship with Lee Ford.
05:17When you're there, the kids and Lee are fine.
05:22They seem to be quite happy and things.
05:24But when you're not there, it was a totally different story.
05:28It was like he had a split personality.
05:31When you're there, it's nice, hunky-dory family.
05:34But then as soon as you've gone, the atmosphere changes and the family changes.
05:40He started resenting my brother going to visit.
05:44You know, he used to make it hard for when he wanted to get access.
05:48He'd always make excuses saying they're going out.
05:50And I tried to reason with him and said to him, look, we all want the same outcome here.
05:56You're with the lady that you want to be with.
05:59I'd moved on from that.
06:01But at the end of the day, I want to see my children.
06:03I want to make sure everyone's okay.
06:05I know for the fact that Leslie wouldn't have stopped Michael seeing the kids no matter what.
06:09They would have been allowed to go and do whatever.
06:12And as it got on from, like, a daily thing to a weekly thing to a monthly thing, you know?
06:18And it didn't see him for weeks sometimes.
06:22In terms of Lee's character traits, clearly, this is somebody who's very self-centered.
06:27He wants to dominate the entire relationships and the dynamics of everybody.
06:32He's not somebody that's open-minded.
06:34He's not somebody that's going to cooperate in terms of co-parenting.
06:38With Lee and Leslie, I think he was controlling her from day one.
06:42Leslie was far more at the time, I think, because of her and Mike breaking up.
06:48And she had no one.
06:50And he was there to stand by her.
06:52And he did stand by her, but not on the right ways.
06:57I found out afterwards he used to beat Leslie.
07:03I know, actually, Lee was hitting Leslie about.
07:06Because there was quite a few times I went up to Telford, changed the locks on the doors, got him
07:11out of the house.
07:12And three, four days later, or a week later, she would give him a key and let him back in.
07:20So he was very controlling with Leslie.
07:23But I didn't know that he was hitting the children at all.
07:32And then one day, she's got up and left, you know, and they're just gone.
07:40In 1995, in an effort to distance herself from Lee Ford, Leslie, under the cover of darkness, secretly relocates to
07:50Cornwall.
07:51She cuts all ties with Michael and his family.
07:55I think she'd left because she was being abused, you know, being hit, I think.
08:00And she'd done it as a moonlight flip, got up, left, went with the kids, took what she had to
08:05take.
08:08When they moved to Cornwall, and then I didn't know where they were, it was the hardest time of my
08:14life.
08:15I'd not got my babies here to see.
08:20And it was devastating.
08:22I couldn't go up.
08:24It was hurting me so much.
08:27No contact with my babies.
08:29I had a few photographs of them.
08:35And they were with me all the time.
08:38They were the only things that kept me going.
08:43We'd continued looking for Leslie, but we couldn't find nothing.
08:47And then we find out that Lee Ford had actually tricked Leslie's mum and dad by phoning them, pretending to
08:55be a solicitor.
08:58Lee found out where Leslie was.
09:01He phoned my mum and told her that he was Leslie's solicitor and he needed a contact number and address
09:10so he could send her some paperwork.
09:12And that's how he found out where she was.
09:15And then he went down and met her.
09:18And then from there on, we think they reconciliated somehow, you know, trying to reform the relationship, really.
09:27What's alarming to me is the speed in which this relationship developed.
09:32So Leslie and Lee were married within 18 months of meeting each other.
09:36They had their first child within a year of that.
09:40And then Leslie tried to leave Lee within four years of that because the violence had escalated.
09:45But then he eventually tracked her down.
09:48So that really shows somebody, to me, who's cunning and manipulative and deceitful.
09:52But also Leslie seems open to falling for Lee's child.
09:58That obviously worked because they'd had another kid then, Lee and Leslie.
10:03And they were going to be a family again as such.
10:07After Leslie and Lee Ford have their second child together, the family of eight moved to Karnke in Cornwall.
10:15They got a bungalow.
10:17Leslie, Lee and the six kids at the time then all lived together in there.
10:23In 2000, five years after Leslie left Telford, her ex-husband Michael manages to track down his eldest daughter, Sarah
10:34Jane.
10:35When I found out where Sarah Jane was working, I rang up and that's when we got talking, telling her
10:42that I love her, I love everybody, all the other children.
10:47And that's when I wanted to get in contact with her.
10:49And hopefully we can start getting back in touch.
10:58She told me she was glad that I got in touch and the other children had always been thinking about
11:04me and asked why I haven't been in touch.
11:10And she did say that she would pass that message on to them.
11:14When I came off the phone, my heart was like one of hope.
11:23Hopefully this will start getting back to me looking after my babies and having them back in my life.
11:31But apparently Leslie's mum found out with that and she rang me and she said everybody was happy and they
11:41didn't want the children's lives turned upside down.
11:43And then that was the last thing I heard.
11:48In late August 2000, Leslie and her four eldest children disappear for a second time.
11:56I first heard that Leslie and the children had gone missing from my uncle.
12:02And I visited a load of people and friends and people we knew and no one had seen her or
12:08the kids.
12:09School friends of the four children also noticed their absence.
12:14They go to school one day and they're not there the next.
12:17I started to think maybe they'd moved away, you know, maybe they just up and left and not told anybody.
12:23I phoned a few people, I phoned my aunts and people who I knew in Telford who she knew and
12:29no one had seen her in Telford.
12:31But in between I was trying to get hold of Lee and I got a phone call and it was
12:37Lee.
12:38And all he said was, she's with you, isn't she?
12:43Put her on the phone so I can talk to her.
12:45Where is she? She's with you, isn't she?
12:47And I go, no, she's not with me.
12:49I'm going to ask you what happened and where is she then?
12:53What's been going on?
12:57And it was two o'clock in the morning when I found Cornwall police.
13:00I reported her missing and told them what I thought.
13:03One of the main police officers phoned me and they were going to go round in physically and on that
13:12Saturday morning.
13:15My first involvement with the Leslie Ford case is when we were aware that she was missing, as were her
13:22four children.
13:23As time went by, we became more and more concerned about what had happened to her.
13:29The initial call came from Leslie's brother, Peter.
13:35The intelligence that was fed through on the briefing that I received was that inquiries had been made with the
13:42school and with other relatives and that she hadn't contacted any of the relatives or the school.
13:49The school didn't know why the children had been pulled out of the school and nobody had had contact with
13:55either the wife or the children.
14:00Local officers attended when she was reported missing.
14:04Lee had actually said that there had been an altercation, some sort of argument, and she'd left him with the
14:10four children.
14:11But had left his two natural children with him and that he had no idea where she'd gone, but that
14:17she'd left him because of that altercation.
14:20Why did she leave him? What was the argument about?
14:24Was it about money? Was it about the kids? Was it about your overall relationship?
14:30When the officers had attended the home address, they would have searched the home address.
14:35And anything out of the ordinary would have been highlighted by the local officers, whether it be damaged furniture or
14:43crockery.
14:44Look alone, there's been a scuffle somewhere, but the officers that attended found nothing untoward within the property.
14:52It's interesting actually to note that his two biological children, they were still in the house.
15:01It was reported by relatives that Lee was abusive in the relationship and that they were concerned for the wife
15:08and children.
15:09Lee had actually said to him that the kids have left with the mom and they've gone somewhere else because
15:13the marriage had broke down.
15:15He doesn't know where they were and they'd left him.
15:19Lee consistently told this story to numerous people.
15:22He said it to neighbours, to friends, to the authorities, to the school.
15:26But, of course, there is one huge gap in this story, which is that Leslie would not have run off
15:31without all of her children.
15:38Six days after the report of people going missing, the senior investigating officer held a press conference.
15:46It's a chance to let the public know why we are in the area and what we're doing and for
15:52any potential witnesses to come forward.
15:56Unfortunately, that just didn't happen. We had little in the way of new leads.
16:03All this makes us dig a little bit deeper.
16:06The investigating officers, they'd look at, was there anything out of the ordinary with the children?
16:12There's no sight, no sound of four people.
16:16Well, that's really unusual.
16:21Lee Ford had still been claiming child benefit for them, even though he told everybody that his wife had left
16:29him with the four children.
16:30Why is he still claiming child benefit?
16:32He should have cancelled that because they've been gone a month now and she's not claiming it.
16:39Why isn't she claiming it?
16:41So CID informed us that he was wanted for fraudulently claiming benefits.
16:48So that was the aim for CID to actually have Lee arrested and brought in to be formally questioned.
16:59As the investigators dig deeper, even more troubling details are uncovered.
17:05When police started asking questions of family and friends, there was some quite shocking information that came to light.
17:12There were allegations made that Lee had been sexually abusing the eldest child, Sarah Jane.
17:21We know that Leslie suspects that Lee is sexually abusing Sarah Jane, who's in her mid-teens around this time.
17:29There are reports that Leslie actually caught Lee in bed with Sarah Jane and obviously she was very alarmed.
17:34But somehow he managed to convince her that it was some sort of consensual sexual relationship.
17:46Around May of 2000, we know that Leslie has reported the abuse to a solicitor, who in turn reported it
17:53to the social services, but unfortunately nothing was done about it.
17:57The fact that Lee would do this clearly shows that he's a sexual deviant, he's got paedophilic tendencies.
18:02But the fact that he's able to convince Leslie that somehow it's all okay just shows the level of control
18:09and dominance and intimidation that he has over her.
18:16Two detectives went down to Lee Ford's house in order to do a more thorough search and to question him
18:23over the child benefit fraud and the allegations of sexual abuse.
18:29When they got there, they found that he wasn't there, nor were his two biological children.
18:41Once we knew that he had fled, the danger was that he would disappear forever and we would never find
18:47him again.
18:59We discovered Lee had driven up to Telford with his own two children, Leslie and Lee's children, and he dropped
19:10them off at their grandparents.
19:13He then came back from Telford, having left the two children in the care of the grandparents.
19:22Then we would have pulled out all the stops. Every constabulary between his home address and his parents address where
19:30the intelligence was that he was going would have been informed that this man needs to be stopped and arrested.
19:37We were able to alert our neighbouring forces and officers within our own force to look out for that particular
19:44vehicle.
19:47So I took out a marked police car, parked up on the A30 westbound, and within five minutes, Blue Mondeo
19:55passed me.
19:57The registration was the correct registration.
20:03So I manoeuvred my vehicle out behind Lee Ford's vehicle, requested him to stop. He stopped.
20:10I got out, walked to his vehicle.
20:14I got him to step out of the vehicle.
20:16I then informed him that I was arresting him on suspicion of benefit fraud.
20:20Before I could caution him, he laughed, which I found very strange.
20:24I cautioned him, and then he said nothing.
20:27So I handcuffed him.
20:30By this time, I was joined by a dog handler.
20:33We searched the vehicle, which was...
20:35There was nothing in it apart from one child's shoe in the boot.
20:41..which always sticks in my mind.
20:44I conveyed him down to custody, as requested by CID.
20:4945-minute drive.
20:50Didn't say a word.
20:53Once he's in custody, he's then behind closed doors.
20:57At that point, that's when the interview started.
21:02The aim of the interview would be to prove any case.
21:05If it's a child benefit fraud, you're looking at the deception and the dishonesty.
21:12And normally, all you would do is go through a checklist, make sure that you've covered every point,
21:17give the suspect the opportunity to make replies, and then once there's enough evidence,
21:22you'd look then to either charge or bail them.
21:28You'd look then.
21:29This interview took a slightly different turn when Lee sat there and actually confessed to killing Lesley, Craig, Stephen, Anne
21:42-Marie and Sarah James.
21:48All five of them.
21:51We'd finally got somewhere for the family. We'd got it.
21:55Why does Lee make this confession?
21:57It could be that he's overcome with guilt and remorse, but that doesn't really strike me as part of Lee's
22:04natural character.
22:05It could be that he's simply just tired of going on the run and having to make up these lies,
22:10and he's just crumbling under the pressure of it all.
22:13Or it could simply be because he knows that the evidence against him is mounting up.
22:17So he knows that if he admits what he's done now, it might come in favor with the police and
22:22also with the judge.
22:23He might get a more lenient sentence.
22:27During the interview, I was in the briefing room with the SIO and quite a few detectives,
22:34and the local detectives walked in and said that he'd just confessed to killing all five of them.
22:44And the atmosphere changed.
22:48There were hardened detectives, and you could see they had tears in their eyes.
22:54Because they are parents themselves.
22:58They'd have kids of those sorts of ages.
23:01And yet these four had been killed for doing nothing wrong.
23:06And it did not make any sense.
23:14What effect did that have on their dad?
23:17What had he done for all this to happen to him?
23:21That man lost his ex-wife and four kids in one day.
23:29I was devastated.
23:34I hit the bottle.
23:35I'm not going to lie.
23:38I was drinking brandy.
23:41And it was...
23:44It was horrible.
23:45My head was...
23:49I couldn't cope with it.
23:51My head had just gone.
23:53I was just drinking, drinking, drinking.
23:55Very upsetting.
23:57Knowing that what you were thinking is getting closer to being the truth.
24:03There was something that, when this came on the news, it shocked the whole county.
24:09I did say to my friends, oh my God, have you seen what's happened on the news?
24:13It's not far from where we go to school.
24:15It's not as far from where we go to live.
24:17But at the time of that, we didn't know who it was.
24:20It wasn't until later on that it was announced that it was Leslie and their children.
24:26When he confessed, Lee actually told us what happened.
24:30He said that he'd strangled all five of them, but had hit Leslie with a baseball bat first.
24:39He also said that none of the children would have been aware of the other one's deaths.
24:46But this was over a 24-hour period.
24:49That shows a great deal of premeditation.
24:52What's really interesting to me about Lee's confession is the terminology that he used.
24:58He said something like, Leslie was killed in the bedroom and the four in the kitchen is in the four
25:04children.
25:05And they were killed by a piece of rope.
25:07And if we examine that, he's using the third person.
25:10He's not saying, I killed Leslie. He's not using the first person.
25:13So to me, this is quite a last ditch, almost desperate attempt to try and remove himself from his actions.
25:18It's almost like by using that, those words, he somehow minimizes his responsibility.
25:26A confession like Lee Ford's is not unique.
25:31You do have people now and again who will confess to their crime because they are genuinely remorseful.
25:39This tends to be where there's been a single victim.
25:43They've lost their temper and they've punched someone, punched someone to the ground or hit them with something.
25:52And it was a single moment of anger.
25:54If it's taken a day to do it, any remorse I think is meaningless.
25:59It shows that that person has no remorse.
26:04It shows them to be a cold-blooded, meticulous killer.
26:08To murder four kids and their mother over a 24-hour period.
26:15What kind of person does that?
26:18What kind of person would even consider that?
26:22There was lots of different times, lots of opportunities where he literally could have ended his actions.
26:28He could have felt some sort of remorse.
26:32Lee Ford confesses to the killing of Leslie and her four children.
26:38But the question still remains, where are their bodies?
26:47Lee actually directed us to where the bodies were.
26:51So he said that he'd buried all five initially at the bottom of the garden.
26:55Three were still in situ when we went there.
26:58They'd been wrapped in a sheet and buried in a fairly deep hole.
27:03And we were able to recover them.
27:05All we could do was sit and wait.
27:08And that's what we did.
27:10We were just all sat there waiting, listening on the news and the TV for any updates.
27:16And waiting for updates from the police as well.
27:21Then...
27:24They bring the body.
27:27Then they start finding the bodies in the woodshed.
27:35So, very hard.
27:38And there's nothing else you can do but just wait.
27:43That's all there was.
27:52We also had an inkling from Lee that two bodies had been buried in a nearby field.
28:03He buried them in a field a couple of miles away but didn't do a very good job.
28:09They weren't as deep.
28:11Of course, he was on his own doing it.
28:14Digging in a sort of clay-type field and he wasn't going to get very far.
28:18After killing the children, Lee covered them in line to slow down their decomposition.
28:22Then he wrapped the bodies in material.
28:25And to me, this just really reiterates the cold and callous nature of this individual.
28:31Because it's one thing to lose your temper in the heat of the moment and lash out with violence or
28:36even to kill somebody.
28:37But it's very different to actually do this to a child's corpse.
28:41Not just once, but repeatedly.
28:44The bodies, by the time you found them, have been in the ground for up to five weeks.
28:51What we're able to do is identify the bodies by what they call family DNA.
28:57DNA will actually tell you 100% who that person is.
29:02Obviously, they were going to take them to be identified.
29:10I wanted to go down there.
29:16I really did want the same.
29:21The bodies were decomposed and there was no way I could even say goodbye.
29:32When the bodies were recovered, they're taken initially to the mortuary and then they'll be subject to a forensic post
29:38-mortem.
29:39A forensic post-mortem is a bit different from an ordinary post-mortem in that it's more thorough.
29:45They look in a lot greater detail just to make sure that they can establish the correct cause of death.
29:52The post-mortems reveal that Leslie had suffered a blow to the head, but all five victims had been strangled.
30:01So that's Craig, Anne-Marie, Sarah-Jane, Stephen, and mum Leslie had all been strangled.
30:09The fact that we can corroborate the cause of death with what the suspect, Lee, was telling us, that is
30:17great from a prosecution point of view.
30:19Only the offender would have known how this family died and he told us the details.
30:27So there was absolutely no doubt that Lee was the offender.
30:33We'd already agreed before Leslie's funeral that we were having the kids buried up in Telford.
30:39Obviously, my brother Michael is the father of the children and we wanted the children buried up in our local
30:45church.
30:47It was emotional.
30:52We had, like, the four coffins.
30:56We had loads of cars there.
30:59It was awful.
31:01Absolutely awful.
31:03On the day, the front lawn, it was covered in flowers and bouquets from neighbours, friends, families.
31:13It was a horrible, obviously the worst day of my life.
31:17But, erm, we did what we had, we set out to do and that was to get the kids to
31:23our local church.
31:24That we can all go and visit now.
31:27Pay our respects too.
31:32Leslie's family hold a separate funeral for her in Cornwall.
31:38The funeral, er, was at the cathedral.
31:42We had some big bouquets made up for the kids and Leslie was there in our coffin.
31:49And the bouquets were there to reinvent the four kids.
31:53So we had four big bouquets made up.
31:56A lot of people did turn up.
31:59The cathedral was rammed.
32:02That was our time to say goodbye.
32:06Not just to Anne-Marie, but to siblings and Leslie herself as well.
32:11Erm, it was a day for us to mourn.
32:15But as children, we shouldn't have had to.
32:17There must have been three, four hundred school kids alone.
32:22And that's without all the family.
32:24Nearly all my cousins and uncles and nephews and things were there at the funeral.
32:31But there was a sense of relief that they were no longer suffering.
32:37Erm, they could be free, they could be with their mum and they could just be free from Lee.
32:49It's a funeral, you know, it's, it's not happy times for anyone.
32:55You're still hoping that it's a dream.
32:59You never get over it.
33:01You never get over it.
33:02You never get over it.
33:10You never get over it.
33:10A date is set for Lee Ford's trial.
33:12But the work doesn't stop for detectives.
33:16On the lead up to the trial there was still that determination that Lee Ford must be convicted of these
33:22offences.
33:22And so there was a lot of hard work that still went into this.
33:27So that if the defence ever raise anything, the barrister at Crown Court has got the answer.
33:34So I think everybody realised the importance of getting a conviction at court.
33:40On top of Lee Ford's confession, the police work hard to collate as much forensic evidence against him before he
33:48goes to trial.
33:50There was certainly some damning forensic evidence which was found.
33:53One of the things I particularly remember are the tyre tracks in the gateway where the bodies of the two
34:00young girls were found.
34:02These tyre tracks matched the tyres on Lee Ford's vehicle.
34:06So that was a good tie in to show that his vehicle had been there recently where the bodies have
34:12been buried.
34:15Some more really good evidence that came to light was in the bags that Lee had dropped off at Leslie's
34:21parents' house.
34:23Asking Leslie's parents to look after them and give them back to Leslie when she turned up.
34:29These bags were never opened.
34:31When we looked inside, there were sheets in there.
34:34And although they'd been washed, they still had traces of DNA on there from blood.
34:40So we could tie the injuries, at least, into these sheets.
34:51When he went to court, I went down with my local newspaper.
34:55And I was sat probably ten foot away from him.
35:01And he'd come out, said his name.
35:05And asked for a plea and he was not guilty.
35:10When he went for his plea, he pleaded insanity.
35:14Now, I've got one thing to say about that.
35:16He lived with six children and his wife.
35:22If he's lost it, why is there two people still alive?
35:27So, to me, no chance.
35:31He knew what he was doing.
35:33He's pre-planned all this.
35:34I firmly believe that if someone is of unsound mind, they're going to plead insanity.
35:42A psychiatric report is going to help them.
35:45If someone is feigning psychiatric problems and refuses a report, I think that is a whole different story.
35:54I think that shows that they know what they're doing and they probably aren't suffering from these problems.
35:59As a forensic psychiatrist and an expert witness, I've given evidence in numerous criminal trials for the insanity plea, not
36:07guilty by reason and insanity.
36:09So, I know that Lee was being completely unrealistic by not allowing a psychiatric assessment, because you need that.
36:15You need that evidence from a forensic psychiatrist.
36:17And even then, the threshold for the court to actually find that plea is very high.
36:22Only a very small minority of cases get that psychiatric defence.
36:29I think he went to court two or three times and said exactly the same.
36:32It was only when he went to Exeter Crown Court, um, he actually changed his plea to guilty.
36:40I think what might have inspired Lee Ford to change his plea is the amount of evidence that the police
36:47had amassed against him.
36:49Everything pointed to the fact that he was the murderer.
36:52He knew things that only the offender would know.
36:56And I think when defence read through this, they realised this has got to be a guilty plea.
37:07Lee Ford was convicted of all five murders.
37:11So, that's Craig, Anne-Marie, Sarah-Jane, Stephen, and Mum Leslie.
37:18He was sentenced to five life sentences.
37:21He won't be eligible for parole until he's completed 27 years in prison.
37:28Originally, he was given 32 years.
37:31I don't know why, I still don't know why to this day, that that was reduced to 27 years.
37:36I have not got a clue.
37:39Obviously, I'm not very happy about that.
37:41So, he's thought about killing four children over a period of 24 hours.
37:47That's not spur of the moment.
37:48It's premeditated. He's planned.
37:50He's probably planned which one he's going to kill first and which one he's going to kill last.
37:54So, in my own personal opinion, it's not spur of the moment.
37:58He's thought about it and he's acted it out and he's killed four kids.
38:04I have no doubt it was a premeditated murder.
38:08I am not sure he wouldn't do it again.
38:10I would not want this man in my community.
38:13And I believe that a whole life tariff would be suitable as punishment for him.
38:24I feel robbed that he was given a 32 year sentence that has been reduced to 27.
38:32I have to say, from my experience of working in criminal trials, I actually think this is a very lenient
38:37sentence, considering he's ended five lives, four of which are innocent children.
38:41I would have expected potentially a whole life tariff, which means that Lee never gets to leave prison.
38:47He's never really given an explanation of why he did it.
38:50He said he can't explain it himself.
38:54And we can only speculate why that is.
38:57Was he trying to cover up a more heinous crime?
39:01Did the family know something?
39:03Might have been the sexual relationship he had with Sarah Jane.
39:07That's one way of stopping him being labeled as a pedophile.
39:10Lee, in retrospect, in his confession, says that he doesn't know why he did it.
39:14But to me, that's just regret and remorse.
39:17Lots of people regret their actions afterwards.
39:19That doesn't mean anything.
39:21What he might be suggesting is that somehow he wasn't in control of his actions, saying that he just snapped.
39:26And I'm not buying it.
39:27I think he was absolutely in control of his actions and he knew what was going on.
39:36It appears that Leslie had already taken steps by going to a solicitor with a view to leaving Ford and
39:43taking the six children with her.
39:45This was also reported to social services.
39:48But I think at that time, there wasn't enough of them to take any further action.
39:53But it did show that she wanted to get away from him and was considering the right steps to go
39:59about this.
40:01Police were aware of the allegations of sexual abuse by Lee Ford against Sarah Jane, the eldest daughter.
40:09That would give a new aspect to the investigation.
40:12We're looking there, perhaps, is there a motive?
40:14Was he trying to keep everybody quiet so he wasn't outed as a sexual predator?
40:24Leslie and the children's families may never find out why Lee Ford committed these heinous crimes.
40:32In Lee Ford's mind, perhaps he would rather be labelled a murderer than a sexual predator.
40:39Who knows what actually went on in that man's mind, but he was a sexual predator.
40:44We've got no doubt about that whatsoever.
40:47He pleaded guilty because the police had a lot of evidence and he didn't want it come out in public.
40:54Of what he'd done and how he'd planned it and whatever the police did find out, I wish we knew,
41:02but no one's going to ever know.
41:09By the terms of his sentence, Lee Ford is eligible for parole in 2027.
41:16Both sides of Leslie and her children's families hope to ensure he is never released.
41:23There is a campaign going at the moment to keep this chap inside.
41:29We want the case looked at, you know, so he never comes out.
41:32He's killed five people, you know? I mean, how can you be rehabilitated from killing five people?
41:40The man's just right in jail. He's killed five people.
41:45This chap's got the possibility of going for parole in the next couple of years.
41:49He should never come out again. He needs to stay inside, so please help me help others with the petition.
42:08The way the children and Leslie themselves should be remembered is that they had family that loved them and cared
42:15for them
42:16and they had friends that cared for them.
42:19They were happy children in school, even though they had what was going on at home.
42:24They managed to put it aside and that's how I'd like to remember them.
42:29I want them to be remembered for having such good school friends and for being well behaved.
42:40Yeah, just for being themselves.
42:43So this is a churchyard in Telford where my babies are.
42:48I come up every week and I sit here talking.
42:52It helps me when we're grieving.
42:53So Steve and Paul and Craig Jonathan are on the outside.
42:57They're there to protect the girls.
43:01That's why I wanted them in that order.
43:03Obviously the boys were into their football.
43:06They always talk about what I'm doing and updating them on everything.
43:11And then obviously talking about them, what they should be doing.
43:14And that's a hard bit of it, but it does give me comfort.
43:18Love you all loads.
43:20Till we meet again soon.
43:22Bye darlings.
43:22Bye.
43:24Bye.
43:54Bye.
43:56Bye.
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