‘My tyrant father was a domestic terrorist’ – son tells of trail of abuse that led to murder

A SON whose “tyrant” father subjected his family to years of domestic abuse before murdering his wife and daughter has described him as a “terrorist” living within their home.

Lance Hart, 57, had ambushed and murdered his estranged wife Claire, 50, and Charlotte, their 19-year-old daughter, outside a swimming pool last July, before shooting himself.

He left a 12-page suicide note saying, “Revenge is a dish served cold. Karma is a b----”, just days after his wife left him.

Speaking for the first time, Luke Hart, 27, said his father subjected them to decades of “frightening and bullying” behaviour. “Our father shot and killed our mum Claire and our 19 year old sister Charlotte,” he wrote on Facebook. “It was the result of decades of abuse and controlling and intimidating behaviour. He was a tyrant who wouldn’t let his family live outside of his domination.

“Our father was a terrorist living within our own home; he had no cause but to frighten his family and to generate his own esteem from trampling and bullying us. For over a decade, we had tried to leave on numerous occasions but he manipulated and threatened...”

The killings happened near the Castle Sports Complex, Spalding, Lincolnshire. As Charlotte lay dying, her last words were: “It was my Dad who shot me.”

Mr Hart said he and his brother had been working abroad and had saved up enough to help his mother and sister escape. “We moved Mum out of our house whilst our father was out, only a few days before the event... killing our mother and sister was our father’s final denial of the future we had spent our lives trying to create for Mum and Charlotte, the life that they deserved.

“He killed himself in an act of cowardice, finally showing how little he had to live for outside of punishing his family for his own distorted sense of power.”

Mr Hart has spoken out to praise his younger brother Ryan, 26. “Ryan protected us; he never hid but always threw himself in the firing line,” he said.

“I hope that our story can encourage others to stand up to and speak out about the many forms of domestic abuse.”