Philpott trial awaits verdict as jury returns

A JURY has resumed its deliberations in the trial of a couple accused of killing their six children in a house fire.

• Jury enters second day of deliberations after Easter break

• Mick Philpott, his wide Mairead and Paul Mosley deny manslaughter charges

• Three defendents are charged with causing the deaths of six of the Philpott’s children in a house fire

The seven men and five women retired on Wednesday afternoon to start considering their verdicts in the manslaughter trial of Mick and Mairead Philpott, and a third defendant, 46-year-old Paul Mosley.

Nottingham Crown Court did not sit on Thursday, so jurors entered their second day of deliberations today after the Easter break.

Philpott, 56, his 32-year-old wife and Mosley all deny the manslaughter of the six children in the petrol-fuelled blaze at the family’s three-bedroom council house in Allenton, Derby, on May 11 last year.

Jade Philpott, 10, and her brothers John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six, and Jayden, five, all died in the fire. Duwayne, 13, died two days later in Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

Prosecutors allege that Philpott plotted the fire in a bid to frame his former mistress, Lisa Willis, who left the home they shared three months earlier, taking her children with her.

During the eight-week trial the jury heard that Miss Willis and her five children, four of them fathered by Philpott, had lived with the couple and their six children at Victory Road for 10 years before leaving in February 2012.

Philpott was due in court in a pre-scheduled hearing to discuss residency of the five children with Miss Willis on the day of the fatal blaze at his home. The hearing was postponed following the fire.