Daily Mirror - 04.03.2020

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(^26) DAILY MIRROR WEDNESDAY 04.03.2020
forgotten murders that shocked the nation...
drank whisky or played card games
with him – unaware that young Sarah
was lying dead in another room.
Gill, the sole survivor, was only
saved – after a high-speed car chase

• by Peter wrestling with the killer
  just as he was about to bring an
  axe down on her neck.
  For more than 40 years what
  really happened inside Pottery
  Cottage has remained untold.
  But now Gill has allowed
  Peter, the police chief who
  saved her life, to finally tell
  the story, using previously
  unpublished witness state-
  ments, crime scene photos
  and police reports. His book,
  The Pottery Cottage
  Murders, is out this week.
  “In all my 34-year police
  career I’ve never had to deal with
  anything quite as horrific,” says
  Peter, now retired and living in
  Norfolk. “It was the one case which
  still affects everyone involved.”
  Gill, now 81, has vowed to
  remain silent about the night-
  mare which robbed her of
  everyone she loved. Billy

Hughes, 30, from Preston, was on

his way from Leicester Prison to

court in Chesterfield, where he

was on trial for rape and

GBH, he attacked the two

guards escorting him in a

taxi on January 12, 1977.

He had smuggled out a

knife from the prison

kitchens which he used to

stab Donald Sprintall and

Kenneth Simmonds in the neck,

leaving them fighting for their lives.

Hughes fled across Derbyshire’s

moorland before arriving at the

Morans’ family home at Eastmoor.

There he picked up two axes kept

outside for chopping wood before

creeping into the house, where he

found Gill’s mum and dad, Amy and

Arthur, aged 68 and 72.

Shortly afterwards, school secretary

Gill, 38, returned home, before her

daughter Sarah came in from school,

followed by her husband Richard, 36.

Gill later told police how Hughes

then began tying them up.

“He started to tie Mum up,” she said.

“He tied her hands behind her back.

Dad said, ‘you’re not tying me up’.

There was a bit of commotion as we

pleaded with Dad to do as he asked.

Sarah was very upset.” It was the last

time she saw her daughter, as Hughes

carried each person to different rooms.

T

he first Peter Howes heard of

the fugitive was an hour and a

half after he had escaped, when

the phone rang at his office in

Buxton police station.

He remembers: “I went straight to

the scene and set up a three-mile

perimeter. We carried on the search for

three days and I went on the radio to

warn people to look out, to check on

their neighbours and to call if they saw

anything suspicious. But we didn’t get

a single call.” In fact several neighbours

and friends did check on the Morans,

but Hughes had been standing next to

Gill when the telephone rang, and told

her exactly how she should reply.

He also made her call Sarah’s school

and call in sick to her work.

And while Peter was in a race

against time to find the escaped

convict, Hughes was revelling

in murder. When Gill asked

her about daughter Sarah,

he replied with a caring

tone: “Sound asleep in

m u m ’s r o o m .”

Later, when the

worried mother asked

why she hadn’t asked for

her ‘comfort towel’ and

favourite toy elephant, he

took them to her room,

telling her on his return: “She was

really pleased to see them.”

In fact Hughes had murdered Sarah

on the first night, slitting her throat

and leaving her body in a foetal posi-

tion on the floor. He is also believed to

have killed Gill’s father Arthur that

Horror at Pottery Cottage

exclusive

by matt roper

the killer

the scene

A

blizzard was blowing across

the Peak District when the call

came in that a prisoner on his

way to court had attacked his

guards and fled across the moors.

Chief Inspector Peter Howse took

charge of the manhunt – but he could

never have known the unimaginable

horrors that were about to unfold.

Before police had even arrived on

the remote scene, Billy Hughes had

already taken an unsuspecting family

hostage in the first house he had come

to – Pottery Cottage. And what

happened over the next three days in

January 1977 would shock Britain, and

haunt Peter for the rest of his life.

After using vacuum cleaner flex and

washing line to tie up Gill Moran, her

husband Richard and their 10-year-old

daughter Sarah, as well as Gill’s elderly

parents Arthur and Amy, Hughes kept

the family captive inside the house for

a terrifying 55 hours.

Holding them in separate rooms, he

played macabre psychological games

with them – while secretly killing them

one by one. At times the family,

believing he wouldn’t harm them if

they complied, even cooked meals,

Injured Donald sprintall and Kenneth

simmonds were both knifed in the neck

Billy Hughes and where he died

Pottery cottage in Derbyshire