MURDER VICTIM’S As I ran from home to get help, I knew beast would kill my mum & baby sister
A TEENAGER GER whose mother and sister were re shot dead by her evil stepdad has spoken of her heartbreak ak for the first time.
Chelsea Chambers was only ten when her mum’s s crazed ex David Oakes entered their eir home as they slept, armed with a shotgun, gun, axe and a can of petrol.
He ordered red Christine, 38, to strip in front of Chelsea helsea and her two-yearold sister Shania before making her cut off her hair and torturing her.
Christine e pleaded with
Chelsea to o escape and raise the alarm but before police lice arrived bouncer Oakes shot her and little tle Shania at point- t- blank range before turning the he gun on himself lf in a botched suicide bid. d.
The family mily had been en due to attend a custody hearing for the toddler ler just hours urs later, in June une
2011.
Chelsea, ea, who clutched tched a teddy bear ear as she gave evidence dence in court to ensure Oakes was jailed for life, is now speaking g out about the murders that shocked cked Britain.
Now 19, she said: “I hated
David Oakes from the moment
I first saw aw him and I was right to. He ruined my life.”
Threats
Chelsea sea met Oakes when her mum, m, who had split from her dad d Ian Flitt, brought him home and nd announced: “This is my new boyfriend.” oyfriend.” It wasn’t long before Oakes moved in.
She recalled: “He asked me to call him im Dad, but I told him I already y had a dad.
“There ere was something about him that gave ave me the creeps but he made Mum happy so I just avoided him.
‘At first they seemed happy but then they hey began arguing and I saw him hit it her. It quickly became a regular ar thing.
“I never knew what she saw in him. He was fat and ugly while she was so o pretty.
“I begged her to leave him but then she became pregnant with Shania a and things seemed OK.”
But t the couple continued to argue until Christine asked Oakes to leave and a bitter custody battle began over their little girl.
They ey were due to go to court on June 6, 2011, but the night before, Oakes es let himself into their house. Chelsea sea recalled: “We were in Mum’s room m and watched Family Guy before we all ll fell asleep together in her bed.
“The next moment, I saw David standing ding over us.
“We We suspected he had a spare key and usually ally blocked the door with a curtain pole but that night we forgot.
“He He said he was going to kill us all and burn the house down. He had a big duffel bag out of which he pulled his shotgun, axe and a can of petrol.
“I grabbed a phone and tried to hide under the bed to call the police but he yanked me out and smashed the phone with the barrel of the gun.
“He t old Mum to take off her clothes
and
Tortured Tortu Christine Cchambers, 38, was beaten by h her violent ex and forced to cu cut off her hair
Pictures: Matthew Usher/ Triangle News
Escaped
Chelsea was only ten when she jumped from a bedroom window to flee killer
Shot dead Two-year-old Shania was murdered in cold blood by her own father
Shania and I sat on the bed, screaming. He then ordere ordered Mum downstairs.” After getting her sister back to sleep, Chelsea crept to the top of the sta stairs to hear what was happening below.
She said: “I heard David smash the TV with the ax axe and he threatened to cut off Mum’s nipple nipples. He was hitting her and making her chop off he her hair. He threatened to put Mum in a wheel wheelchair and said she’d have to wheel herself behin behind our coffins.
“I r remember thinking we are all going to die and b began to cry. Mum came upstairs. She was tople topless with clumps of hair missing and blood comi coming out of her mouth.
“Sh “She held me tight and whispered in my ear to go and get help.
“S “She said she was proud of me and that she woul would always love me and would see me soon. Then she went back downstairs.”
Ch Chelsea, who says her mum was her “best frien friend”, climbed out of her bedroom window to ru run to her dad’s house, five minutes’ up the road in Braintree, Essex.
Sh She said: “It was 3am, I could hard hardly speak and burst into tears, sayin saying, ‘It’s David. He’s going to kill them.’ Dad rang the police who sent officers to Mum’s and to us. We were taken to a police station. We waited all night for news. It wasn’t until the next morning we were told he’d killed them both. I felt guilty for not waking up Shania. I could have caught her from the bottom and saved her but I was trying to save her and Mum.”
Chelsea told how she first saw Oakes hit her mum when she was seven and got used to seeing her wearing sunglasses indoors.
She recalled how she once even saw her mum’s feet lift off the ground as Oakes pinned her up
against the bathroom door. She
Monster
David Oakes carried out attack at the family home hoped things might get better when Christine became pregnant with Shania in February 2008 but it didn’t change a thing.
When Christine finally dumped Oakes after six years together, she had to get a restraining order against him as he was threatening to kill her and kidnap Shania.
In the week before their murders he sent dozens more death threats. Christine called the police but Oakes remained free.
In April 2012, Chelsea’s evidence helped convict him of murder. But just four months into his jail term, Oakes died of cancer, aged 51.
Chelsea said: “I was furious when I heard that. I wanted him to languish in jail and feel a tenth of the pain and heartache he has caused me, which I will have to live with for the rest of my life. I pray that he is rotting in hell.”
The Independent Police Complaints Commission ruled Essex Police missed opportunities to arrest Oakes.
And Chelsea, who was awarded £21,500 in compensation for police failings when she turned 18, believes the force “could and should” have done more to protect her family.
Chelsea suffered more tragedy in 2015, when her dad died of a heroin overdose, causing her to spiral into depression.
But then she met her boyfriend Billy Hartland, 21, and the pair plan to start a family of their own. Chelsea, who now lives in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, said: “Billy is amazing. I’ve opened up to him about my past and he’s supported me in every way.
“I can’t wait to start a family and tell them how amazing their nan and auntie were.
“I want to make my mum proud so she can smile down at me from above.”
I wanted him to feel a tenth of the pain he has caused me