LONDON: A British couple were handed lengthy jail terms yesterday for killing six of their children in a plot to torch their house that went disastrously wrong.
Mick Philpott, 56, was jailed for life, while his 32-year-old wife Mairead was jailed for 17 years for the manslaughter of their children, in a case that has gripped Britain.
Judge Kathryn Thirlwall said Mick Philpott was a “disturbingly dangerous man.”
“You have no moral compass,” she told him. Paul Mosley, who joined the couple for illicit relationship and was in on the plot, was also jailed for 17 years for manslaughter.
Philpott was told he would serve a minimum of 15 years and his wife and Mosley at least eight and a half years over the deaths at the family home in Derby, central England, on May 11 last year.
All six children, aged from five to 13, died from smoke inhalation. The Philpotts wept as the sentence was announced.
There was the rare sound of applause in court, coming from the Philpotts’ own family members, as the judge finished her sentencing.
“Die, Mick, die,” one shouted, while another called out: “Your own babies.”
In response, Philpott smiled and made an obscene gesture as he was led from the dock.
A jury found the trio guilty after an eight-week trial.
With 17 children in total by five different mothers, Philpott was already a nationally notorious figure, dubbed “Shameless Mick” by the press for his feckless lifestyle funded by hefty state welfare handouts.
Prosecutors said the couple set their home ablaze in a bid to frame Philpott’s 29-year-old former live-in girlfriend and claim custody of her five children, four of which he fathered.
She had left the house three months earlier, taking her children and leaving just six youngsters for whom Philpott could claim welfare payments.
