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A chilling moment shows a man taking children out for a McDonald’s – after he had just murdered their parents.
Derek Martin was found guilty on Friday of killing Chloe Bashford and her husband Josh at their home in Newhaven, East Sussex in June 2023.
The 67-year-old, who was previously married to Chloe’s mom, told police he had been cleaning a window at the property when he “just flipped” over a row about money.
He struck the 30-year-old over the head with a hammer then stabbed her to death, Sussex Police said.
Josh, 33, arrived home a short while later and saw him with a knife in his hand, so he ran upstairs before being repeatedly stabbed and strangled to death.
Martin, from Brighton, then changed his clothes, picked up the couple’s four children from school, and took them to both Costa and McDonald’s in Newhaven.
CCTV shows the killer taking the kids on the day out and disposing of Chloe’s mobile phone in bushes of the nearby Sainsbury’s supermarket.
He had told the children that their parents had an argument, and removed all the door handles in their home, so that if the couple’s children returned home, they could not find the bodies.
Martin returned the children to their grandmother’s house in Brighton, then bought some beers from a shop in Whitehawk which he drank on the seafront.
Shortly afterward, he handed himself in at the police station, where footage shows him stating: “I’ve killed two people.”
Officers attended the Bashford family home, where they discovered the bodies of Chloe and Josh, and Martin was arrested.
While he was remanded in custody, Martin saw a police appeal and passed a handwritten note to a prison guard, which confirmed where he had discarded Chloe’s phone.
Martin admitted causing the couple’s deaths, but denied murder due to diminished responsibility resulting from a depressive disorder.
Having heard all the evidence across the three-week trial, including five psychiatrists’ reports, a jury at Lewes Crown Court rejected Martin’s claim of diminished responsibility and convicted him of two counts of murder.
He has been remanded in custody and is due to be sentenced on November 6.
Detective Chief Inspector Kimball Edey, of the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, said: “I would like to thank Chloe and Josh’s children and their families for their patience during this investigation.
“It goes without saying how sorry I am that they have had to suffer the loss of Chloe and Josh, and I am in awe at the courage and strength they have all shown following the events of 9 June 2023.
“The result today will, sadly, not change what happened, but I hope that it will enable them to end this chapter and move on to the next.
“I would also like to thank the members of the public who have supported this investigation.
“Finally, I commend the many members of staff and police officers who have worked tirelessly to help bring Derek Martin to justice.”
Marko Brooke from the Crown Prosecution Service added: “This has been an extremely challenging case to prosecute.
“Derek Martin’s claim that he had “lost it” when he killed Chloe and Josh did not tie up with the evidence of what happened on that fateful day. Martin waited for Josh to come home and pursued him upstairs when he did, before attacking him.
“Martin then had the presence of mind to clean up the scene and did everything he could to ensure that Josh and Chloe’s children did not find out what had happened to their parents, before handing himself into police and admitting what he had done.
“In cases like this, the main evidence comes from expert psychiatrists.
“It required significant additional inquiries to be made to carefully scrutinize the initial position adopted by some of the expert psychiatrists in saying that Martin did have a partial defense of diminished responsibility.
“This meant that the case has taken a long time to come to trial, and we appreciate the additional distress this has caused to Chloe and Josh’s family and friends.
“We are tremendously thankful to them for their patience and support during this terrible time and hope that today’s verdicts bring them some small comfort.”
