Claire Throssell is determined that no other child should be put in danger like her sons were
WORDS: HELEN CARROLL ©DAILY MAIL. PHOTOS: DAILY MAIL, SHUTTERSTOCK
The moment the doorbell rang, Claire Throssell knew the worst had happened. Hands trembling as she opened the door, she saw a police officer on the doorstep. Frozen to the spot, she begged him, ‘What has he done?’ The look in the policeman’s eyes confirmed her worst fears.
Claire’s abusive ex-husband, whom she had finally plucked up the courage to leave six months earlier, had done exactly what she had warned the family court he would do if given unsupervised access to their sons. He had taken their lives, and his own, to get back at her for leaving him.
Having lured their sons Jack, 12, and Paul, nine, into the loft to play with a train set he’d bought that day, Darren Sykes had set 14 petrol-fuelled fires around the family home, blocking the exits with padlocks and furniture, before locking the hatch behind them. Despite the boys’ brave attempts to escape, all three had suffered fatal injuries by the time the fire brigade managed to break down the door.
‘I warned social workers and the family court that he was evil enough to kill our sons,’ she says, tears filling her eyes. ‘But no one listened and he was granted five hours’ unsupervised weekly access. The judge who signed that court order signed their death warrant.’
Claire says her sons were terrified of their father and would spray themselves with her perfume before visiting him so they’d have her scent with them as a form of comfort.
This sense of injustice has propelled Claire, now 52, to campaign tirelessly to stop unsafe child contact with dangerous perpetrators of domestic abuse. This year marks the 10th anniversary of her sons’ deaths, and Claire, together with charity Women’s Aid, is calling on the government to make a commitment to child safety, saying the family courts must not allow known abusers access to their children.
Violent rages
Claire’s first fateful meeting with Sykes was when she was 25 and they were working for the same company – she as a bookkeeper and him a carpet estimator. After a two-year courtship, they married. Claire says that although he was possessive and seemed insecure, it wasn’t until their elder son was born that his ‘nasty’ side truly emerged. ‘The mask just came off,’ she says. ‘He couldn’t bear no longer bei
