Jailed Philpott’s benefit “lifestyle” criticised

MICK Philpott has been sentenced to life imprisonment for killing six of his children in a house fire with Chancellor George Osborne stating that tax payers should not fund benefit lifestyles like his.

• Mick Philpott handed life sentence after being found guilty of starting fire that killed six of his children

• Mairead Philpott and Paul Mosley given 17 year sentences for manslaughter

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• Couple found guilty, alongside friend Paul Mosley, of plotting to frame Philpott’s former partner Lisa Willis

• “We will rape each other”: Mick Philpott’s letter to friend protesting innocence as he plots freedom with wife

“Shameless Mick”, as he was known on his estate, was described by a judge as a “disturbingly dangerous man” and showed no remorse as he was jailed with a minimum 15 year term for being the “driving force” behind the plot to start the house fire to win custody of his children. He and wife Mairead, along with Paul Mosley, were each found guilty of six counts of manslaughter on Tuesday after a trial at Nottingham Crown Court.

Chancellor George Osborne said the case highlighted the need for reform of the benefits system, as he questioned why taxpayers were funding “lifestyles like that”.

Mr Osborne, who has been leading the Government’s defence of its sweeping welfare changes, said Philpott was responsible for his “absolutely horrendous” crimes, but said there was a “question for government and for society” about the benefits that allowed Philpott to live the way he did.

Judge Mrs Justice Thirlwall told him: “You are a disturbingly dangerous man. Your guiding principle is what Mick Philpott wants, Mick Philpott gets. You have no moral compass.”

Mairead, 32, and 46-year-old Mosley were both jailed for 17 years.

The fatal blaze that tore through the house in Victory Road, Derby, was started by the trio in an effort to try and frame Philpott’s former mistress, Lisa Willis, after she left the family home with her five children three months earlier.

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She had lived in the three-bed council house for 10 years with the Philpotts and their six children until she became unhappy and fled.

The judge said Philpott, 56, had become “obsessed” with 29-year-old Miss Willis and his plan to blame her for the fire and get his children back at a pre-scheduled court hearing on May 11 last year - the same day as the fire - was “outside the comprehension of any right thinking person”.

She added: “It was a wicked and dangerous plan.” Members of the Philpott family, who were sitting in the public gallery, broke into applause as the judge finished sentencing.

One shouted: “Die, Mick, die.”

Another said: “See you, Mairead. Hope you enjoy life on your own.”

“Your own babies,” another called out.

Philpott, who had wiped tears from his eyes as the judge spoke to him, smiled and made an obscene hand gesture towards the public gallery as he was led out of the dock.

Philpott, his wife, and Mosley killed Jade Philpott, 10, and her brothers John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six, Jayden, five, and Duwayne, 13, in the fire at their Allenton home.

Even if the plan to rescue the children had worked and they had survived, it would have been a harrowing ordeal for them, the judge said.

“Their terror was the price they were going to pay for your callous selfishness,” she said.

“In fact they paid with their six young lives.

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“They had no chance of survival and I am quite sure that when you set that fire you were not thinking about them because you simply did not care.

“You were going to get your own way.”

Mercifully, the children’s deaths were swift and appeared to be pain-free, she added.

Mairead, who wept as she was jailed, was another of Philpott’s “chattels”, the judge said.

She told Mairead, who will serve half of her sentence before release, that she believed her grief was real but said she should not have put her husband first.

“These were your children; your first responsibility, surely, was to them.

“Instead you joined in with his plan. Putting his obsession with Lisa above the safety of your children.”

Mosley, who showed no emotion as he was jailed, “enjoyed the attention... gained from your proximity to the fire”, the judge said.

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