Father kills kids after losing custody

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

f***'s sakes salfish b*****d

 

A man who is believed to have smothered his two young daughters while they were on a weekend custody visit telephoned their mother to say "the children have gone to sleep forever" before killing himself, it emerged last night.

 

The man, named locally as David Cass, 32, was found dead on Sunday evening with his two children, Ellie aged three, and Isobel, one, in a caravan parked at the Southampton garage where he worked. Cass separated from the children's mother, Kerry Hughes, four months ago and since then had intermittently slept in the caravan, parked at Paynes Road Car Sales.

 

At the weekend, he was caring for the youngsters for the first time after an acrimonious split with Hughes. He picked the children up on Saturday morning and was due to return them to their mother when he called her at around 6.45pm.

 

A family friend, Val Frasier, said last night: "He apparently said to her, 'The children have gone to sleep forever and I'm going to hang myself'."

 

Hughes called Hampshire police immediately after receiving the call, but when officers forced open the gates of the garage the three were already dead. A police spokesman said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths.

 

Earlier in the week, Cass is thought to have been confident of winning custody of his daughters. The garage's manager, John Martin, described how Cass's mood had changed after his hopes about custody arrangements for the children were dashed.

 

"On Friday morning he was ecstatic with it all - he said it all looked good and he thought he could get back into the house and have custody of the kids. But that obviously went pear-shaped somewhere," he added.

 

By Friday afternoon, Martin said, Cass was "depressed and angry" and handed his notice in to the garage, claiming he had a plan. Martin said he urged him "not to do anything stupid".

 

"I thought he would go back and cause havoc round the house and get himself arrested. I didn't realise he was going to be that desperate," he said.

 

The garage's owner, John Mayhew, said he saw Cass on Saturday and described him as "very, very low". "He worked on Saturday until 1pm. He was depressed. He said it was something to do with the custody of his children. He was a nice lad. He was a very good worker. He kept himself to himself, he was mellow. He was a doting father -it sounds ridiculous, but he was a doting father."

 

Hughes was too distraught to talk, but a friend, Emma Timberlake, paid tribute to the young girls: "Ellie's laugh made everyone smile because it was so cute. I was on the phone to Kerry on Friday and I could hear Izzy and Ellie laughing and having a play fight. And then Ellie started tickling her mother and I was thinking how cute that was.

 

"Ellie was a gorgeous little girl, and Kerry used to call her the ginger ninja. Izzy was so beautiful when she was born and she had just started to become the gorgeous little girl that Ellie was."

 

The incident has led to renewed calls for a Samaritans-style helpline for fathers locked in custody battles. Members of the now disbanded campaign group Fathers 4 Justice said the number of contacts from desperate parents pleading for advice had surged.

 

The case is the latest in a number of incidents this year in which fathers have killed their children. Last month, failed businessman Christopher Foster is believed to have shot his teenage daughter and his wife before setting fire to the family's home in Shropshire and killing himself. In June, Brian Philox gassed himself and his two young children while on a Father's Day outing to Snowdonia.

[sutty]

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[matty]

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[Ronnie Whelan]

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[John am Rhein]

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[johngibo YPC]

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