London - The father accused of killing six of his 17 children in a house fire admitted on Wednesday that he and his wife had a sordid sex session with another man on the night their children died.
Mick Philpott, 56, sobbed in court as he spoke of his “total shame” that he, wife Mairead, 31, and their best friend Paul Mosley, 46, took part in the “degrading” threesome hours before the fire, which they are alleged to have planned.
After the children died, they had three or four further sexual encounters together and smoked cannabis frequently.
Philpott said he was “finding it very difficult to cope with what was going on” and added: “Having sex and smoking cannabis was one way of blocking it out.”
He and his wife, who wept throughout the hearing, and Mosley are charged with killing the children at their home in Derby in the early hours of May 11 last year.
It is alleged that Philpott masterminded the fire in a plot to frame former live-in lover Lisa Willis, 29, after she walked out on him, taking her five children.
Prosecutors say the plan, allegedly an attempt to ruin her reputation ahead of a child custody hearing, went “horribly wrong” and the fire swept out of control.
In a dramatic day at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday, Philpott, dressed in a grey suit, white shirt and purple tie and clutching a St Christopher necklace, sobbed throughout and at one point collapsed, disappearing in the dock.
He admitted that hours before the blaze he and his two co-defendants had a sex session in the house after he drove to a nearby dealer to buy cannabis.
“I was kissing and cuddling my wife and she was holding Paul. It was just Mairead playing with Paul,” he told jurors, adding that it only lasted a “couple of minutes”.
He did not initially tell the police what had happened because they were “totally, totally ashamed of what we’ve done. It’s totally irrelevant to what happened to the children, it’s degrading”.
He added that the sex sessions following the fire were his idea, not his wife’s. He said he was “numb” at the time. “I wanted to die to be with my kids,” he added.
Philpott also described the couple’s regular dogging sessions, which involved having sex with strangers in public. One session resulted in Mairead becoming pregnant by an unknown man. She later had an abortion.
On the night of the fire, Mosley left their house before Philpott and Mairead had sex and watched a film.
Philpott said he and his wife were sleeping naked in the conservatory when they were woken by the fire alarm in the house.
They went into the kitchen and saw an “orange light” that seemed to be coming out of the living room, he said.
Anthony Orchard QC, defending Philpott, asked him: “What was your first thought when you realised there was a fire?” He replied: “My kids.”
Philpott went on: “I didn’t do it, on my life. They’re my life, my heart, they’re everything to me.
“I wanted to hear them but I couldn’t. I was hysterical. How do you explain trying to get to your babies? I wanted to get to them. I shouted at my wife to get out. [She] tried to get past and I stopped her.”
He went outside and climbed a ladder in an attempt to break the children’s bedroom window.
“I was screaming for my daughter. The window was shut. I punched it twice but it wouldn’t break,” he said. “I just wanted to get my babies.” Philpott managed to break the window with a metal socket set but could not get in because of the thick black smoke coming from the room.
The jury was then played a dramatic 999 call from that night, which led to Philpott disappearing while sobbing hysterically in the dock.
He also admitted hitting both his wife and his lover when they disciplined his children.
The court had previously heard how Mosley had sex with Mairead on the night of the fire. “The only thing I did wrong that night was b*** Mairead over the snooker table,” he told police.
Jade Philpott, ten, and brothers John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six, and Jayden, five, all died from smoke inhalation after being trapped inside the burning house. Their brother Duwayne, 13, died of smoke inhalation three days later.
The three defendants deny the charges. The trial continues. - Daily Mail