According to prosecutors in France, a British father today admitted slitting the throats of his two young children after being allowed to spend time with them for the first time since a bitter divorce with their French mother.
The 48-year-old man, who has not been named, allegedly carried out the double-murder in a suburb of Lyon, in eastern France, on Saturday afternoon before fleeing on a pair of roller-skates.
His ex-wife had handed over their 10-year-old son and daughter, five, on Friday evening, and they spent a night in the old family home in Saint-Priest, around three miles from the city centre.
This was despite the man being a heavy drinker, and having been violent towards his wife before their divorce up to three years ago.
When the mother, an accountant’s assistant also in her 40s, returned to pick up the children from the second floor apartment at around 5pm on Saturday she saw the father looking panicked.
‘He was in the stairwell of the block, and his clothes were covered in blood,’ said a neighbour. ‘He made off on a pair of roller-skates, leaving his car in the apartment block’s garage.’
Following a short manhunt, the man was found in Lyon’s 8th arrondissement at around 8pm on the same evening.
A judicial source said that a knife which was thought to be the murder weapon had been found in the flat.
The source said the double murder was ‘clearly linked to a painful separation’ and ‘legal procedures concerning the right to access to the children which the father deemed insufficient.
In 2010, the father had attacked his then wife, leading to these rights of access being withdrawn.
This was the first weekend since then that the man had been allowed to have the boy and girl with him without an adult third party.
The Lyon prosecuting source said the man ‘admitted being the murderer’ but ‘did not give many more details.’
The father has been living in France for 10 years and married his French wife in 2005. She was finally heard by prosecutors on Sunday, providing them with their details of her troubled relationship with her ex-husband.
Investigators were particularly keen to know who gave the father legal authority to look after the children.
In a further twist, it emerged that the couple had been involved in a further legal dispute over the flat, which is worth around 100,000 pounds.
‘There was a lot of friction because the wife wanted the flat so that the money could be divided up, while he wanted to keep the house,’ said another investigating source.
Ahmed Benguedda, a former neighbour of the couple, told AFP, France’s news agency, that the couple had divorced ‘two or three years ago.’
She won custody of the children following the divorce and went to live in the Isere region of France, which is just to the south east of Lyon and an easy drive or train journey away.
Mr Benguedda said the children were ‘well-balanced’ and often played with his seven-year-old daughter. ‘The people who live here are all in a state of shock,’ he added.
A Foreign Office spokesman said the matter was being investigated. ‘We are aware of the reports and we are urgently looking into them,’ said a spokesman.
The man is set to be brought before Lyon prosecutors on Monday, when he is expected to be formally charged with the murders.
Read more: Daily Mail
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