00:00:05
NARRATOR: In June 2000, the Austins enjoyed what was to be
00:00:09
their last family holiday.
00:00:11
A month after this home video was filmed,
00:00:14
three members of the family were dead.
00:00:17
On the 10th of July, Claire Austin didn't turn up
00:00:20
for her shift as a carer.
00:00:22
Her husband, Phillip visited her place of work.
00:00:26
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He told them that his wife
00:00:28
wouldn't be in that day because she had back trouble.
00:00:31
A man apparently at ease with himself, and with the world.
00:00:35
NARRATOR: In reality, Claire was lying lifeless
00:00:38
in a pool of blood on her kitchen floor,
00:00:41
murdered by her own husband.
00:00:43
But Phillip Austin wasn't finished yet.
00:00:46
Later that day, he calmly collected
00:00:48
his children from school.
00:00:51
ANDY TENNET: This isn't a red mist decision.
00:00:53
This isn't a loss of temper.
00:00:56
This is a reasoned decision that a man has made,
00:01:01
that he's going to murder both of his children.
00:01:04
NARRATOR: After taking them out for a fish and chips supper,
00:01:07
he strangled them.
00:01:08
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He killed his entire family.
00:01:10
He killed the family that he had created,
00:01:13
and he did so in such a cool and such a calm way.
00:01:17
CAROL QUINN: He tore half of my family out of our lives
00:01:21
NARRATOR: Phillip Austin had committed the unthinkable,
00:01:24
and undoubtedly become one of the world's most evil killers.
00:01:29
[THEME MUSIC]
00:01:50
NARRATOR: In the summer of 2000, the Austin
00:01:52
family had disappeared, and there was
00:01:54
no answer on the home phone.
00:01:59
This was completely out of character,
00:02:01
and as former detective inspector
00:02:03
Andy Tennet remembers, local people were starting to worry.
00:02:08
The children had not been at school for a week,
00:02:12
and this was during term time.
00:02:14
No application had been made to take
00:02:16
the children out of school.
00:02:19
The community itself were a little
00:02:21
bit anxious because they hadn't seen the family for a while.
00:02:24
In fact, one neighbor had been out to Claire's car,
00:02:28
and had even taken the measure of marking
00:02:30
the tires against the curb to see if the car moved overnight.
00:02:34
But it didn't.
00:02:37
NARRATOR: The horrifying truth behind their absence
00:02:40
would soon be revealed.
00:02:41
On Monday the 17th of July 2000, the bodies
00:02:46
of 31-year-old Claire Austin and her children,
00:02:49
Kieran, aged eight, and Jade, seven,
00:02:52
were discovered in the family home.
00:02:55
The prime suspect was their thirty-one-year-old
00:02:57
husband and father, Phillip Austin,
00:03:00
who was nowhere to be found.
00:03:03
The damage that he did was not just limited to the three souls
00:03:07
who lost their lives, but it affected
00:03:09
everyone, relatives, friends.
00:03:13
It was a desperate, desperate thing to do.
00:03:17
NARRATOR: The quiet suburban street in the Standens Barn
00:03:20
area of Northampton had been the family's home for eight years.
00:03:25
They appeared to neighbors to be an ordinary family.
00:03:28
Now their home was a crime scene.
00:03:32
When we have a family who appear
00:03:34
to be normal from the outside, and there
00:03:36
is a domestic homicide and the children are killed,
00:03:39
there's a tendency to think that these men have just snapped.
00:03:42
They have just lost it.
00:03:44
But that is not what happens at all.
00:03:46
You do not go from being a psychologically
00:03:48
healthy individual one day to killing your family the next.
00:03:52
These cases, they're not about a loss of control.
00:03:55
If anything, they're a way of gaining control.
00:04:00
NARRATOR: This killer story begins in 1969.
00:04:04
Phillip Austin was born that Valentine's Day in Northampton.
00:04:09
His mother worked in a care home.
00:04:11
His father was a lorry driver.
00:04:13
This was a very traditional nuclear family,
00:04:16
and he was an only child.
00:04:18
NARRATOR: Phillip's aunt, Maureen Taylor,
00:04:20
remembers that he was a reserved little boy.
00:04:23
MAUREEN TAYLOR: We always noticed that he was quiet.
00:04:26
I mean, if he was with my son, he sort of opened up a bit,
00:04:29
but other than that, he was always quiet.
00:04:33
He was one of those boys who always stood on the sidelines,
00:04:37
always watching, never initiating anything.
00:04:41
NARRATOR: After finishing school,
00:04:43
Phillip Austin went to work in a factory
00:04:46
before securing a job in the warehouse
00:04:48
for a supermarket chain.
00:04:51
He was living with his mum and dad while working
00:04:53
as a forklift truck driver.
00:04:55
And then, in 1991, he met a girl called Claire Golden.
00:05:00
21-year-old Claire's close friend, Diane Beale,
00:05:04
remembers how she loved a night out.
00:05:07
DIANE BEALE: We used to be on the dance floor,
00:05:09
dancing together, and everybody was watching us
00:05:11
and we didn't care.
00:05:12
She was such fun.
00:05:13
She really was.
00:05:15
NARRATOR: On the night in question,
00:05:17
Claire was out with another group of friends.
00:05:20
But she was keen to tell Diane all about her evening.
00:05:24
She rang me the next day and said that she'd
00:05:26
met somebody really nice.
00:05:28
And she'd been sitting at a bar, and he was
00:05:33
at the opposite end of the bar.
00:05:35
And he brought her rose.
00:05:37
And then he took it round to her,
00:05:38
and that's how he introduced himself.
00:05:41
She said he was really nice, and she liked him.
00:05:44
She was going to see him again.
00:05:47
Claire was about three months younger than he was,
00:05:50
and she was different in every way.
00:05:52
She was fun, she was gregarious, she was loyal,
00:05:55
she was happy about everything.
00:05:57
Not someone you would expect to fall
00:06:00
for this introverted, night-shift forklift truck
00:06:03
driver.
00:06:05
NARRATOR: When Claire's mother and stepfather, Carol
00:06:08
and Harry, met the new man in her life,
00:06:11
he was not what they were expecting.
00:06:14
He wasn't her type.
00:06:16
He was quiet.
00:06:17
HARRY QUINN: I didn't dislike him or anything, you know.
00:06:20
I just thought he was a quiet guy who didn't have
00:06:25
a lot of interests, you know.
00:06:26
And I couldn't blame him.
00:06:28
He didn't share the same interest as me.
00:06:31
NARRATOR: 22-year-old Austin's relationship with Claire
00:06:35
progressed rapidly.
00:06:37
Claire very quickly became pregnant after they met.
00:06:42
Phil moved in while she was pregnant.
00:06:45
But she was looking forward to it, and I was happy for her
00:06:48
because she seemed happy.
00:06:50
She said she loved him.
00:06:51
NARRATOR: News that there was going
00:06:53
to be a new baby in the family was
00:06:55
met with excitement by the prospective grandparents.
00:06:59
My husband used to say, I'm not old enough
00:07:01
to be a grandfather, and, I'm not going
00:07:02
to be married to a grandmother.
00:07:04
And we used to laugh about it.
00:07:07
NARRATOR: On the 19th of February 1992,
00:07:10
the family welcomed Kieran Michael Austin into the world.
00:07:15
Harry and I went up to the hospital to see her.
00:07:18
And he was just gorgeous.
00:07:21
I went out and bought a video camera,
00:07:24
and I remember doing the video.
00:07:28
I was trying to do this professional video.
00:07:33
HARRY QUINN (VOICEOVER): Hello.
00:07:35
Hello.
00:07:36
It's old Granny Quinn.
00:07:39
Come in.
00:07:40
Granny Quinn, yeah.
00:07:41
[INAUDIBLE]
00:07:42
Thank you very much.
00:07:44
NARRATOR: 23-year-old Phillip Austin
00:07:46
seemed to rise to the responsibility of fatherhood.
00:07:50
He was very, very hands on.
00:07:53
He used to feed him, change his nappy.
00:07:55
He was really hands on.
00:07:57
NARRATOR: Whilst the couple began
00:07:59
to settle into their roles as parents,
00:08:01
it became evident that Austin's mother, Linda,
00:08:04
had very fixed ideas about how her new grandson
00:08:07
should be brought up.
00:08:09
Linda was going to be the one that was going to be in charge,
00:08:12
and that was it, you know.
00:08:13
And I can understand why Claire got a bit upset about it,
00:08:17
shall I say.
00:08:19
She thought, well, you know, why should she tell me what I
00:08:22
can and can't do with my baby?
00:08:23
Sort of thing.
00:08:25
NARRATOR: Relationships between Phillip Austin and his parents
00:08:28
soon soured.
00:08:29
Even at little Kieran's christening,
00:08:32
his mother couldn't hide her disdain.
00:08:35
She had a real long face, and not long after that,
00:08:39
she stopped seeing them.
00:08:42
And didn't speak to them.
00:08:44
They had an argument.
00:08:46
She tore up every photo she had of Kieran, and that was it.
00:08:52
There were one or two attempts at reconciliation,
00:08:57
but Austin had made his mind up.
00:08:58
He didn't want anything more to do with his parents.
00:09:03
I think this is, perhaps, a way
00:09:04
of Austin isolating his family from outside criticism.
00:09:10
Because when that's missing, you're not called
00:09:12
to account for your behavior.
00:09:16
NARRATOR: When Kieran was just a few months old,
00:09:19
Claire fell pregnant again.
00:09:21
Jade Carol Austin was born on the 22nd of April 1993,
00:09:27
just 14 months after her brother.
00:09:30
When Jade was born, oh my goodness.
00:09:33
I mean, she was just everything.
00:09:35
She was so pretty, and she was like a little doll.
00:09:39
NARRATOR: Of course, Harry was ready with his video camera
00:09:42
as Kieran met his baby sister for the first time.
00:09:47
There she is.
00:09:49
Hello.
00:09:55
After Jade had come along, well, I
00:09:57
could see a very happy family.
00:09:59
That's what I thought, anyway.
00:10:02
NARRATOR: And to make their new family even more complete,
00:10:05
just three months after Jade's arrival,
00:10:07
on the 17th of July, Claire and Phillip Austin were married.
00:10:12
It was a lovely little wedding, but only a small one.
00:10:15
I did all the video, again.
00:10:19
That was a good day.
00:10:20
And I enjoyed it.
00:10:22
NARRATOR: Whilst Claire's family and friends turned up
00:10:25
in their droves to congratulate the happy couple,
00:10:28
Austin had only two guests.
00:10:31
We weren't invited to the wedding.
00:10:33
So none of the family were, because in the end,
00:10:36
Phillip cut himself off from everybody.
00:10:39
His half of the church was almost deserted, whereas hers
00:10:44
was absolutely packed.
00:10:47
If ever there was a demonstration,
00:10:50
a perfect example of the strange nature of their relationship,
00:10:55
this was it.
00:10:57
The pictures show the perfect family,
00:11:00
but this would soon change.
00:11:02
In just over two years, 24-year-old Phillip Austin
00:11:06
had gone from living at home with his parents
00:11:09
to being a husband and father to two children.
00:11:13
It's the most dramatic change that he's
00:11:16
ever encountered in his life.
00:11:22
NARRATOR: As the honeymoon period came to an end,
00:11:24
the young family settled in to their new life together.
00:11:29
At the outset, when Kieran was born,
00:11:32
Austin did his best to be the perfect partner,
00:11:35
the perfect dad.
00:11:38
But as time wore on, he found that more
00:11:41
and more difficult to sustain.
00:11:44
And by the time Jade arrived, his sense of isolation
00:11:49
was beginning to grow.
00:11:52
NARRATOR: Having a toddler and a newborn was all consuming,
00:11:55
and the doting grandparents began
00:11:57
to have some concerns about the way
00:12:00
Austin was with his young son.
00:12:03
He was too rough with him.
00:12:05
You know, he would have him lying
00:12:06
and he'd be patting him on the chest and stuff, too hard
00:12:10
though.
00:12:11
There was too much roughness and that, for me.
00:12:15
And often Kieran would end up crying, you know.
00:12:19
Even when he was playing with Kieran,
00:12:21
when you look at some of the family videos, even in play,
00:12:25
he could be quite heavy-handed and, you know,
00:12:27
raise a few eyebrows.
00:12:29
NARRATOR: The family began to see other things in Austin's
00:12:32
behavior that concerned them.
00:12:35
After a time, he started doing strange things,
00:12:40
like he bought a golf clubs.
00:12:43
But he didn't play golf.
00:12:45
And he bought some weights for weight training,
00:12:51
but he never used them.
00:12:53
He bought himself a pair of trainers, over 100 pounds.
00:12:57
And 20 years or more ago, that was a lot of money.
00:13:01
NARRATOR: By contrast, Claire was a saver, always
00:13:04
squirreling away money so that they
00:13:06
could afford something nice.
00:13:09
It caused arguments between the couple.
00:13:12
But if she did find out, that would be it.
00:13:14
He'd grab his bag and off he'd go with a few bits and pieces,
00:13:17
and she wouldn't see or hear from him
00:13:19
for three or four days.
00:13:21
She'd often ring the police and say, he's gone missing.
00:13:24
And they'd find him, and bring him back.
00:13:27
That's how he got the nickname Gulliver, because he'd
00:13:30
just go off on his travels.
00:13:31
So she'd ring me and say, oh, Gulliver's gone off again.
00:13:35
And he'd come back knowing that she would have him
00:13:38
back because she didn't want her children to grow up
00:13:41
in a single parent family home.
00:13:43
NARRATOR: As the years went on, Claire
00:13:45
learned to deal with Austin's occasional absences.
00:13:50
Kieran and Jade grew to be great friends as well as siblings.
00:13:55
Kieran was her protector.
00:13:58
I mean, they'd fight over different things
00:14:00
like all brothers and sisters do, but no, he loved her.
00:14:05
He really did.
00:14:07
Kieran.
00:14:10
He was a grand kid.
00:14:13
The questions.
00:14:15
Oh, dear me.
00:14:18
He would ask you a question, and you'd try and answer it.
00:14:22
And you were giving him an answer,
00:14:24
but halfway through the answer, he had another one.
00:14:29
That's just what he was.
00:14:31
He was just curiosity about everything.
00:14:37
Jade, she was very quiet.
00:14:40
Quite shy.
00:14:41
She had a most amazing smile that lit up her face,
00:14:44
and she used to blush and go red a lot when he spoke to her.
00:14:48
And she had a little giggle.
00:14:51
NARRATOR: When the children started going to school,
00:14:53
Claire found she had time to focus on other things.
00:14:58
Claire got a job.
00:15:00
She was able to buy her own car.
00:15:02
She had her own income.
00:15:03
So she wasn't reliant on Phillip all the time for money.
00:15:08
She had her own social life.
00:15:11
All of those sorts of things, I think in some respects, that
00:15:15
started to threaten Austin.
00:15:18
Family was the one area of his life that he could dominate,
00:15:22
and that's where his efforts were focused.
00:15:25
So the family became like a pressure cooker.
00:15:28
It absorbed a lot of stress and a lot of strain.
00:15:31
And when you have an individual like Austin,
00:15:34
that family can be placed in quite a risky situation.
00:15:38
Austin wanted to be the controlling
00:15:41
force in that family.
00:15:42
And I don't mean that in a particularly
00:15:45
aggressive or nasty way, but he wanted to be the alpha male
00:15:49
in that family.
00:15:51
And I think he preferred it when Claire was dependent upon him.
00:15:58
NARRATOR: The veneer of the perfect family unit
00:16:01
was beginning to wear thin.
00:16:04
Fatherhood was not his natural position.
00:16:07
He wasn't paternal.
00:16:09
He tried it out, so to speak, but knew it didn't suit him.
00:16:13
And he found it very, very difficult to sustain.
00:16:17
Very often, in these situations,
00:16:19
it's the children that reveal things.
00:16:22
They let things slip.
00:16:24
And that kind of sparks suspicion
00:16:26
in other family members who go, hang on a minute.
00:16:28
Things aren't quite right here.
00:16:30
NARRATOR: The children began to open up to their grandparents
00:16:33
about some worrying incidents with their father.
00:16:38
At one time, with both of them,
00:16:40
we found out they had been doing something
00:16:42
horrible where he'd put his hands around the throat.
00:16:46
And Jade had told me.
00:16:48
And she said, we don't like it when
00:16:50
daddy does that, do we, Kieran?
00:16:53
I was horrified.
00:16:55
You know, because that's something you just don't do,
00:16:57
do you?
00:16:58
You know, it's not even in fun.
00:17:01
And the way the children described it,
00:17:04
it was not a joke when he did it.
00:17:10
This is a really significant warning sign for me,
00:17:12
because this behavior is very common in domestic abuse
00:17:15
situations.
00:17:16
It's a way of a perpetrator showing a victim,
00:17:19
I could kill you if I wanted to.
00:17:22
NARRATOR: When Claire found out what had been happening,
00:17:25
she was extremely upset, especially as she'd
00:17:28
witnessed something herself which had
00:17:30
given her cause for concern.
00:17:33
She said that one day, he hit Kieran really hard,
00:17:36
hard enough to make him fall.
00:17:39
In front of Claire.
00:17:41
And Claire said to him, if you ever
00:17:45
do that again, we're finished.
00:17:47
Don't ever touch him like that again, because we
00:17:50
won't be together anymore.
00:17:53
I met her in Northampton, and I took her to a solicitor.
00:17:57
And I said, Claire, you've got to get rid of him
00:18:01
and start again.
00:18:03
I said, you can't live like this.
00:18:05
I said, you know that Harry and I will look after you.
00:18:08
I said to her, you know, if you want to come
00:18:11
live here with the kids.
00:18:14
But he obviously told her around.
00:18:17
And she was here for a few days, but then she went back.
00:18:21
She went back to him.
00:18:23
NARRATOR: Claire was very clear that this roughness with Kieran
00:18:27
had to stop.
00:18:28
Phillip Austen agreed to go to counseling sessions for help.
00:18:33
But that didn't last long.
00:18:35
This is something that he didn't stick to,
00:18:38
because I honestly think that he didn't believe
00:18:40
he was doing anything wrong.
00:18:42
He literally did this to take the pressure off,
00:18:44
and to make it look like he was changing his behavior.
00:18:48
NARRATOR: Nevertheless, the experience seemed to have had
00:18:51
a positive effect on Austin.
00:18:54
She told me that he was spending
00:18:56
a bit more time with Kieran.
00:18:57
They were cooking together, and going for walks,
00:19:00
and playing football.
00:19:02
And it seemed to be working and making
00:19:03
things easier in the house.
00:19:05
And she said, he's getting help, and I think it's working.
00:19:08
I think everything's going to be all right.
00:19:10
NARRATOR: Things appeared to have turned a corner.
00:19:13
31-year-old Austin was making a real effort with the children,
00:19:17
and had stopped being so frivolous with money.
00:19:20
In the summer of 2000, they went on holiday to Fuerteventura
00:19:25
with Claire's cousin.
00:19:31
When they came back, we picked them up from the airport.
00:19:34
They were full of the [INAUDIBLE]..
00:19:35
They'd enjoyed it so much.
00:19:37
And they kept talking about going on another one.
00:19:41
And Carol evidently said they cry, you know, come on.
00:19:45
You know you can't be going on another holiday straight away.
00:19:48
So I said, they've got plenty money.
00:19:50
They've got some saved up in the bank.
00:19:53
NARRATOR: The holiday seemed to have done
00:19:55
them all the world of good.
00:19:57
Three weeks later, Carol spent the day with Claire
00:20:00
and was pleased to hear that things between the couple
00:20:03
were going well.
00:20:04
We used to go shopping on a Thursday.
00:20:08
And that day, she told me that they were getting on better
00:20:12
than they'd ever done.
00:20:14
NARRATOR: But despite Claire's optimism,
00:20:16
the tide was about to turn.
00:20:18
On Sunday the 9th of July 2000, they were looking
00:20:22
forward to a family treat.
00:20:24
The whole family was supposed to have
00:20:26
been going to the cinema.
00:20:28
And again, Austin was helping Kieran, I think it was,
00:20:32
with some homework.
00:20:33
He got frustrated with Kieran.
00:20:35
He'd ended up shouting at Kieran and getting angry.
00:20:40
He'd had a [INAUDIBLE] Kieran, and I
00:20:43
think he went over the top.
00:20:45
So probably Claire had a bit of a go at him about that.
00:20:49
And then he went in the bathroom and stayed
00:20:51
there for most of the day.
00:20:54
NARRATOR: They missed the film.
00:20:56
On the Sunday evening, I phoned
00:20:59
up to say if they'd enjoyed it.
00:21:01
And he answered the phone, something he never, ever did.
00:21:06
And he said Claire was upstairs.
00:21:08
So he was very quiet.
00:21:10
And the way he spoke, I thought, there's been an argument.
00:21:14
So I just said, tell Claire I'll phone her tomorrow.
00:21:19
The rest of the week, I kept phoning,
00:21:23
and all I got was the answer phone.
00:21:27
We thought, well, you know, they're maybe
00:21:29
trying to patch things up.
00:21:31
I remember ringing them on the Wednesday, and I left a message
00:21:36
and said, come on, Claire.
00:21:37
You know, what are you playing at?
00:21:39
You know, what's up?
00:21:43
Have we upset you?
00:21:44
Why aren't you ringing us?
00:21:47
I didn't start to worry until towards the end of the week.
00:21:50
And her cousin, who they'd been on the holiday with, called in.
00:21:56
And I said, have you heard from Claire?
00:22:00
And she said, why?
00:22:02
I said, well, I've been ringing and I can't get an answer.
00:22:05
So she said, well, don't tell her that I've told you,
00:22:07
but apparently he's playing up again.
00:22:10
But she doesn't want you to know because she
00:22:12
doesn't want you to worry.
00:22:15
Which is why we didn't do any more.
00:22:18
NARRATOR: By Monday the 17th of July 2000,
00:22:22
Kieran and Jade had missed a whole week of school.
00:22:25
Concerned by the children's absence,
00:22:27
staff tried to contact the Austin family,
00:22:30
but their calls went unanswered.
00:22:33
The phone rang, and it was the school secretary.
00:22:36
I don't know whether it's a mother's intuition,
00:22:40
but alarm bells rang, and I just knew it
00:22:43
was going to be something bad.
00:22:45
I suppose I kept trusting.
00:22:47
They've gone away.
00:22:50
I bet they've booked this holiday and gone away,
00:22:53
and just not said anything to anyone.
00:22:56
And my heart was down here, and I didn't know why.
00:23:02
NARRATOR: Carol and Harry went straight round
00:23:04
to the family's home.
00:23:05
When they arrived, there was no sign of anybody.
00:23:09
Carol started talking to a neighbor,
00:23:11
whilst Harry let himself inside using the spare key.
00:23:15
For a brief second, his spirits lifted.
00:23:19
There was all letters and stuff behind the door,
00:23:22
so I pushed on to get it open.
00:23:25
And I thought, yeah.
00:23:26
They must have gone away.
00:23:28
Yeah.
00:23:30
Anyway, I got in the house, then this most awful smell hit me.
00:23:37
I went down the passageway towards the kitchen,
00:23:41
and went into the kitchen.
00:23:44
And I just saw Claire lying there, blood everywhere.
00:23:49
And she had marks on her wrists.
00:23:56
It looked like she maybe cut her wrists.
00:24:02
Because murder, you know, murder was not on my mind.
00:24:07
So I run to the front door, just as Carol's come in.
00:24:10
I said, Carol, don't come in.
00:24:14
Claire's done something to herself.
00:24:17
His face was just dreadful.
00:24:20
I said, no, she hasn't.
00:24:22
I said, she wouldn't.
00:24:24
I just went straight in.
00:24:26
And I went into the kitchen and Claire laid on the floor.
00:24:29
And I just stood there.
00:24:32
NARRATOR: Lying lifeless beside Claire
00:24:34
was Dandy, one of the family's pet poodles.
00:24:38
As Carol took the scene in, her thoughts
00:24:41
turned to her grandchildren.
00:24:44
I said, oh my God, where are those children?
00:24:48
And I went straight up the stairs, Harry following me.
00:24:52
And there was Kieran, laying across his bed.
00:24:57
Carol stayed with Kieran, and I remember shouting, not Jade.
00:25:01
Please not Jade.
00:25:03
And I ran into Jade's room and she was lying on the floor.
00:25:09
And I remember thinking, this bastard.
00:25:14
How could you leave your daughter
00:25:16
lying on the floor like this?
00:25:20
NARRATOR: The children had been strangled.
00:25:24
You read books.
00:25:25
You see things on television, you know.
00:25:28
What the police need.
00:25:30
They need somewhere that is at least disturbed,
00:25:34
so we didn't touch the body.
00:25:36
I mean, I wanted to pick up my granddaughter
00:25:39
and put her on the bed.
00:25:41
I wanted to do that more than anything,
00:25:42
but I knew that wasn't the right thing to do.
00:25:47
NARRATOR: Carol and Harry's world had been shattered.
00:25:51
They felt certain that the only person who could possibly
00:25:54
be responsible was Austin.
00:25:57
I know.
00:25:59
I know.
00:26:02
He wasn't there.
00:26:02
Where was he?
00:26:11
NARRATOR: Former detective inspector Andy Tennet remembers
00:26:14
visiting the family home.
00:26:17
At first, everything looked normal,
00:26:18
but then we noticed ornaments had been knocked over
00:26:20
and there was a slipper on the stairs.
00:26:23
And then in the downstairs toilet, right in the corner,
00:26:27
was one of Claire's earrings.
00:26:29
And then in the hallway, there was
00:26:31
another one of her earrings.
00:26:32
So quite clearly, something had happened that caused
00:26:36
that amount of disruption.
00:26:39
Claire was somebody who had had self-defense training,
00:26:42
so when Austin did attack her, she put
00:26:44
up a really significant fight.
00:26:47
NARRATOR: The evidence showed that there'd
00:26:49
been a struggle which started upstairs in the couple's
00:26:52
bedroom, and ended with Claire's lifeless body in the kitchen.
00:26:57
The only person absent from the house was Austin.
00:27:01
But initially, we couldn't just say, well, he's our offender.
00:27:05
He could have been kidnapped.
00:27:09
It could have been some sort of revenge killing.
00:27:12
He could have been out the country.
00:27:14
We just didn't know.
00:27:16
NARRATOR: As the police forensics team began
00:27:19
a lengthy examination of the house,
00:27:21
Carol and Harry had to break the devastating news
00:27:25
to family and friends.
00:27:27
Later that night, Diane was woken by the phone ringing.
00:27:31
It was Carol.
00:27:32
And I said, why are you living this time of the night?
00:27:36
And she said, I have something horrible to tell you,
00:27:41
but I need to tell you now because I don't
00:27:43
want you to wake up in the morning
00:27:45
and see the news on the telly.
00:27:47
So I said, I don't understand.
00:27:49
What are you talking about?
00:27:52
So she said, Phil's killed them all.
00:27:56
And I said, what you mean?
00:27:57
She said, they're gone.
00:28:01
NARRATOR: The next day, the police
00:28:03
continued their investigation.
00:28:06
There was no other sign at the scene of any ancillary crime,
00:28:12
if you like.
00:28:13
You know, there was no evidence of drugs.
00:28:16
There was no evidence of a break in, as an example.
00:28:19
So with that, as your other evidence begins to build up,
00:28:23
then you begin to focus on the only person
00:28:26
missing from the house, that being Austin.
00:28:30
NARRATOR: Once the forensics examination of the scene
00:28:33
had been completed, the search team was sent in.
00:28:37
That was when we found the other dog that
00:28:40
had been killed and sort of hidden
00:28:42
away next to a tumble dryer.
00:28:44
And then in the bedroom, we found a pile of men's clothing.
00:28:49
Amongst that was a pair of beige cargo pants,
00:28:52
and when those were unfolded onto some paper,
00:28:55
quite clearly, we could see blood spattering.
00:28:59
NARRATOR: The forensic evidence on the cargo pants
00:29:02
suggested that the killer had been wearing
00:29:04
them when Claire was attacked.
00:29:06
Having discovered that Austin's car was missing,
00:29:10
the police put out an appeal for any sightings
00:29:13
and received a call from a member of the public.
00:29:16
A car had been parked outside her house for about a week.
00:29:19
So we had it lifted and taken to a forensic garage
00:29:24
where it was, again, examined right the way
00:29:26
through for any evidence that might be
00:29:29
connected to the crime scene.
00:29:33
NARRATOR: In the back of the car,
00:29:34
investigators found the remains of a McDonald's breakfast,
00:29:38
a car magazine with several cars circled,
00:29:41
and a carrier bag containing a rubber mallet.
00:29:45
The sort of thing you'd use, perhaps, for tapping
00:29:48
in tent peg and the like.
00:29:49
That had got a significant bend halfway down.
00:29:52
And the head certainly appeared that it had blood on it.
00:29:57
And this became apparent that this
00:29:59
may well be a weapon that had been
00:30:02
used in the attack on Claire.
00:30:04
NARRATOR: It didn't take the police long
00:30:06
to discover that Austin had purchased one of the cars he'd
00:30:09
circled as a getaway vehicle.
00:30:12
The evidence was mounting, and it
00:30:14
all pointed in one direction.
00:30:17
Austin becomes most definitely our suspect.
00:30:21
We're not treating him as a potential witness
00:30:23
or another victim anymore.
00:30:25
We definitely think he's our man.
00:30:28
NARRATOR: From witness statements and the evidence
00:30:30
they discovered, investigators determined that the murders had
00:30:34
taken place on the 10th of July, a week
00:30:37
before the bodies were found.
00:30:39
This meant that Phillip Austin had now been on the run
00:30:42
for more than seven days.
00:30:45
This is a man who has just killed his family,
00:30:49
so it's very important that the police
00:30:51
track him down because only he knows
00:30:53
what he's going to do next.
00:30:55
It's vital that this person is apprehended.
00:30:58
NARRATOR: Investigators piecing together the evidence
00:31:01
had managed to work out some of Austin's movements
00:31:04
on that fateful day.
00:31:05
Early on Monday the 10th of July,
00:31:08
he'd finished his night shift at the warehouse,
00:31:10
returned home, and had then taken the children to school.
00:31:15
Now normally, he'd have driven home, talked to Claire,
00:31:20
gone to bed.
00:31:23
Not this morning.
00:31:25
He books an appointment at a massage parlor in Northampton.
00:31:31
He goes to that appointment, and he ends up
00:31:33
having full sex with the lady that's
00:31:37
providing the massage for him.
00:31:39
He then starts to head home.
00:31:41
He goes into a local DIY store near where they live
00:31:44
and purchases a rubber mallet.
00:31:48
He buys this mallet because it's something he's
00:31:50
planning to use in the murders.
00:31:52
And I think this emphasizes how premeditated domestic homicides
00:31:56
are.
00:31:57
These men don't just snap or lose control.
00:31:59
They plan them over a long period of time.
00:32:03
NARRATOR: From the evidence they discovered,
00:32:05
the police pieced together the moments
00:32:07
that led up to Claire's death.
00:32:10
Austin had returned home, armed with a mallet.
00:32:13
He found Claire upstairs.
00:32:16
A fight starts in the bedroom, and it
00:32:18
continues down the stairs.
00:32:20
Claire goes to the front door and opens it.
00:32:23
Austin comes up and slams it, so that no one can help her.
00:32:30
He is trying to strangle her, but Claire, she
00:32:35
gets away from him.
00:32:36
She overpowers him and pushes him off, and runs back
00:32:40
through the house.
00:32:40
But she ends up on the floor in the kitchen.
00:32:44
And Austin's on her straight away,
00:32:46
and then begins a sustained violent attack.
00:32:51
NARRATOR: Austin continued to strangle Claire and beat her
00:32:55
with the mallet, before stabbing her with such force
00:32:59
that the knife broke.
00:33:00
He then goes back to the kitchen drawer,
00:33:02
takes another knife, continues to stab her with that.
00:33:06
And then retrieves her bra from the wash
00:33:11
basket that's in the kitchen, and again,
00:33:14
throttles her with that.
00:33:17
Any one of those assaults would have been enough to kill her.
00:33:23
After he's killed his wife, self-preservation kicks in.
00:33:27
So he changes his clothes.
00:33:28
He goes to his wife's workplace and he tells her colleagues
00:33:32
she's not going to be in for a while
00:33:33
because she's injured her back.
00:33:35
Now the very fact that he's able to go through
00:33:37
with this rather convincing performance
00:33:40
does show me how little remorse he has.
00:33:43
NARRATOR: 31-year-old Phillip Austin
00:33:45
had subjected his wife, the mother of his children,
00:33:48
to a lengthy and brutal attack.
00:33:51
Later that day, he killed his son and daughter too.
00:33:54
The evidence proved the he'd planned the murders,
00:33:57
and his getaway, in advance.
00:34:00
Back in the incident room, investigators
00:34:03
had been following the latest information
00:34:05
on Austin's whereabouts.
00:34:07
Bank records revealed that he'd been using his debit card
00:34:11
whilst on a tour of the North of England, visiting the seaside
00:34:16
and staying in bed and breakfasts.
00:34:18
Once you come to the realization of what you've
00:34:21
done, most people would probably just give
00:34:25
themselves up, or kill them--
00:34:27
kill themselves.
00:34:29
But they wouldn't go off on a holiday, which is what he did.
00:34:36
He was a quiet customer.
00:34:38
He paid his bills on time.
00:34:40
Might go to the pub for a drink in the evening.
00:34:42
But in effect, was keeping quite a low profile
00:34:45
and wasn't really raising anybody's alarm bells.
00:34:49
NARRATOR: Despite following up on every lead,
00:34:52
the police still hadn't caught up with Austin.
00:34:55
However, on the 20th of July, they had a breakthrough.
00:34:59
A member of the public in the Lake District
00:35:02
spotted a man in a car acting suspiciously,
00:35:05
and called the police.
00:35:07
An officer responded, and found that the man
00:35:10
had cut his wrists.
00:35:12
And in the conversation, very early on,
00:35:15
when the officer says to him, well, come on.
00:35:17
You know, who are you?
00:35:19
Austin says, well, you all know me.
00:35:21
I'm the man who's killed his wife and family.
00:35:24
NARRATOR: It quickly became apparent
00:35:26
that his self-inflicted injuries were not serious.
00:35:29
I think what he's trying to do here is place himself
00:35:32
in the role of the victim.
00:35:33
Look at me.
00:35:34
Poor me.
00:35:36
NARRATOR: Austin was flown back down to Northampton
00:35:39
to face questioning.
00:35:41
Potentially, still at that time,
00:35:43
he could allege somebody else had committed the offenses.
00:35:46
Or he could allege, again, that, you know,
00:35:48
he'd been kidnapped and abandoned up north.
00:35:51
Or he'd got amnesia, or anything.
00:35:53
We didn't know.
00:35:54
But actually, Austin gave us a full account almost from as
00:35:58
soon as we turned the tapes on.
00:36:00
NARRATOR: Under police caution, the 31-year-old
00:36:03
detailed the attack on his wife, explaining
00:36:06
that it started with a row.
00:36:08
He says that at some point during that argument,
00:36:12
the red mist comes down.
00:36:14
And he takes a swing at her, forgetting that he's
00:36:18
got the mallet in his hand.
00:36:20
And he catches her on the arm.
00:36:23
They then end up having a full-blown fight.
00:36:27
NARRATOR: That version of events did not wash with Andy.
00:36:31
At what point does that red mist stop?
00:36:33
Because during that assault, particularly once they're
00:36:36
in the kitchen, he's making decisions
00:36:38
about where he's going to go, what he's going to use,
00:36:41
what implement he's going to pick up next.
00:36:43
That doesn't sound like red mist to me.
00:36:46
That sounds like a man who's intent on murdering his wife.
00:36:51
NARRATOR: The police already knew that Austin had purchased
00:36:54
a car before collecting eight-year-old
00:36:57
Kieran and his seven-year-old sister Jade from school.
00:37:00
But Austin revealed he'd taken the children
00:37:03
on a drive lasting seven hours.
00:37:06
He goes over to the East Coast.
00:37:09
They buy fish and chips, and he buys the children some drinks.
00:37:14
But even at that stage, he's lacing
00:37:16
their food and their drinks with a herbal sleep agent.
00:37:20
And they only really go home when Austin's satisfied
00:37:24
that they are very sleepy.
00:37:27
NARRATOR: Austin claimed that he returned
00:37:29
home, having forgotten what he'd done earlier that day.
00:37:34
He recounted that he put the children to bed,
00:37:36
and later that night, Jade woke up.
00:37:40
He's trying to make out that he
00:37:41
had some kind of episode in which he killed his wife
00:37:44
and he killed the dogs.
00:37:45
And it's only when his daughter asked him for a glass of water,
00:37:48
and he goes in the kitchen to get
00:37:50
that that he sees the bodies and he remembers what he's done.
00:37:53
And then that triggers his later behavior.
00:37:55
And I think that this is an absolute load of nonsense.
00:37:58
Austin remembers exactly what he's
00:38:01
done, because he's following through a very
00:38:03
carefully constructed plan.
00:38:07
He says, at that point, the only way forward he could say
00:38:11
was to kill the children.
00:38:14
This isn't a red mist decision.
00:38:16
This isn't, you know, a loss of temper.
00:38:19
This is a reasoned decision that a man has made,
00:38:24
that he's going to murder both of his children.
00:38:28
NARRATOR: Whilst he was retelling these horrific crimes
00:38:31
against his own family, Phillip Austin showed
00:38:35
no sign of emotion or remorse.
00:38:39
At the end of the interview, I recall that the officers
00:38:43
were saying they had asked him how
00:38:46
he felt about what he'd done.
00:38:50
And after a moment's thought, Austin
00:38:52
said, well, I'm not proud.
00:38:55
And that was the sort of most we ever got out
00:38:58
of him in terms of how he felt.
00:39:02
NARRATOR: Once in prison, Phillip Austin
00:39:05
contacted his aunt and uncle for the first time
00:39:08
in more than eight years.
00:39:10
He was allowed to phone somebody up.
00:39:12
And the only person he phoned was Roger, my husband.
00:39:16
Didn't phone his mum and dad.
00:39:18
Wouldn't have nothing to do with him.
00:39:20
And we went to see him.
00:39:22
And asked him, you know, what the hell are you doing?
00:39:25
You know, do you realise?
00:39:26
And all he was worried about was things in the house
00:39:29
that belonged to him.
00:39:31
And Roger slammed his fist on the table
00:39:34
that we're sitting at, and he said,
00:39:36
you've got more to worry about than the things in the house.
00:39:39
And I just walked out crying.
00:39:42
NARRATOR: Over the next four months,
00:39:44
as the trial drew near, Austin's legal team
00:39:47
attempted to put forward a defense
00:39:49
of not guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
00:39:54
The way it was summed up for me was they
00:39:56
were trying to get a psychiatrist that would
00:39:57
say he was mad and not bad.
00:39:59
And nobody would.
00:40:01
So he went to trial as bad.
00:40:05
NARRATOR: On the 22nd of March 2001
00:40:08
at Northhampton Crown Court, Phillip Austin
00:40:11
changed his plea to guilty.
00:40:13
He was sentenced to life in prison
00:40:15
with a minimum term of 15 years.
00:40:18
The prosecution felt this was too lenient, and appealed.
00:40:23
David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, increased it to 20.
00:40:29
But that equates, if you just count three lives, to just
00:40:33
over six years per life.
00:40:37
Less than that, if you count the two dogs.
00:40:40
That's not justice.
00:40:43
If he would have jumped out of the bushes
00:40:44
and killed women who were jogging in the park,
00:40:46
we would never see this individual out in public again.
00:40:49
I think the fact that he killed his family has
00:40:52
significantly reduced the length of the sentence
00:40:54
that he received.
00:40:56
Now, for me, for the same behavior
00:40:58
to be given a different level of severity
00:41:00
depending on who the victims are is absolutely ludicrous.
00:41:04
NARRATOR: Austin was behind bars,
00:41:07
but the impact of his actions had
00:41:09
a devastating effect on Claire, Kieran and Jade's
00:41:13
family and friends.
00:41:14
Facing the reality of it, and the reality
00:41:18
of what your future is going to be like, or not like.
00:41:23
She thought the future was going to be this wonderful future
00:41:27
with the kids involved, and all down the years, you know,
00:41:32
and the children, they would have an--
00:41:35
and suddenly it's gone.
00:41:37
Snuffed out like putting a candle out.
00:41:42
NARRATOR: In the years since the murders,
00:41:44
Carol and Harry have had help from a counselor.
00:41:48
She was absolutely wonderful.
00:41:51
Really, really wonderful.
00:41:53
Taught us how to cope with things.
00:41:55
How to deal with it.
00:41:57
Like if you start to have really bad thoughts,
00:42:01
replace them with a happy one.
00:42:05
And I always replace it with seeing
00:42:07
Jade and Kieran standing at the window,
00:42:09
waiting to go out with us for a day.
00:42:11
And they'd be jumping up and down
00:42:13
and running out to the door to come running up the path to us.
00:42:20
NARRATOR: There is the possibility in the near future
00:42:22
that Phillip Austin may be set free.
00:42:25
Those that knew Claire and the children
00:42:27
hope they will never see that day.
00:42:30
He's never said sorry.
00:42:31
He's never said why.
00:42:34
He doesn't seem to have any remorse of any kind.
00:42:37
He's a very, very dangerous man.
00:42:42
I think the level of violence that he used against Claire
00:42:47
was completely unwarranted and unnecessary.
00:42:51
And he had plenty of opportunity not to kill the children.
00:42:57
Does that make him evil?
00:42:59
Yes.
00:43:01
He's a monster to be able to do what he's done,
00:43:05
and still live with himself, calmly.
00:43:09
He went on a tour after slaughtering his family.
00:43:14
You must have an empty soul, or no soul at all,
00:43:18
to be able to do that.
00:43:21
NARRATOR: We may never know the real motivations
00:43:23
behind Austin's actions.
00:43:25
What is certain is that his claims of a red mist
00:43:28
moment cannot possibly be true.
00:43:31
His crimes were carefully planned.
00:43:33
He purchased a mallet for the sole purpose of murdering
00:43:36
his wife, before calmly collecting
00:43:39
his children from school, drugging and strangling them.
00:43:43
Making Phillip Austin one of the world's most evil killers.
00:43:47
[MUSIC PLAYING]
