A man has admitted murdering a mother and three children whose bodies were found at a house in Derbyshire.
Damien Bendall, 32, who had previously admitted manslaughter, pleaded guilty to murdering his 35-year-old partner Terri Harris, her 11-year-old daughter Lacey Bennett, her son John Paul Bennett, 13, and Lacey’s friend Connie Gent, also 11, at the home he shared with Ms Harris.
Bendall entered the guilty pleas at Derby Crown Court on Wednesday (December 21). He also admitted raping Lacey during what prosecuting KC Louis Mably KC told the court were “brutal, vicious and cruel attacks on a defenceless woman” and young children.
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Ms Harris and the children were found dead at a house in Chandos Crescent, Killamarsh, in north-east Derbyshire, near Sheffield, on September 19 last year. Bendall will be sentenced later on Wednesday.
Louis Mably KC, prosecuting, opening the case, told the court Bendall’s attacks unfolded in Harris’s family home. He said: “On the night of Saturday September 17, 2021, stretching into the early hours of September 19, the defendant brutally and viciously murdered his then partner, Terri Harris, who is aged 35 – and was in the early stages of pregnancy.
“He also murdered Terri’s two children, by a previous partner, her 13-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter Lacey, and he murdered Connie Gent, also aged 11. She was a friend of Lacey’s who just happened that evening to be staying at Lacey’s house for a sleepover.”
Louis Mably KC told Derby Crown Court: “The circumstances of these offences are truly hideous and dreadful. These were brutal, vicious and cruel attacks on a defenceless woman and three young children.
“The defendant attacked them using a claw hammer which he used to hit them over the head and on the upper body. The attacks were of such ferocity, in essence their skulls were smashed in and in the case of one of the children, 11-year-old Lacey, parts of her brain matter were found on the living-room floor.
“It was perfectly clear none of the victims stood a chance.”
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