Neighbours gets 38 years
their friends they were anxious about bumping into each other on the school run.
Ten days before the killings, Reeves was caught on a door bell camera approaching Mrs Chapple outside her house following an earlier exchange between her and Mrs Reeves. After the killings, Reeves was recorded in the background of the 999 call telling someone, believed to be his mother Lynn, “I couldn’t let her (or them) torment Kayley any more”.
Reeves said he had little memory of the incident but recalled sitting on the stairs in tears after the conversation with his wife. He claimed he did not remember taking his dagger out of the picture frame in which it was usually displayed.
The defendant, who had previously recounted his fear of CCTV cameras and of being under surveillance, said that the next thing he had recalled was a bright light coming on, and then trying to get down on to his front.
“I felt as though I had been seen or compromised. White light was a trigger when I was a soldier – when a light goes on or somebody sets off a flare, when that white light goes up something is going to happen,” Reeves said.
Asked what else he remembered, the defendant said: “I had a feeling like it was me or them.”
Adam Feest QC, prosecuting, asked: “When your wife said you needed to have a separation, did you at least, in part, blame Jennifer because she had tormented (your wife)?”
He added: “‘I can’t let her or them torment Kayley’ – I want to suggest that this is an accurate expression of why you went around to your neighbours that night. I’m going to suggest that’s the truth.”