The cottage killings...
It was a crime that shocked Britain. An escaped convict took an innocent family hostage at their remote Derbyshire home, as police hunted for him during a blizzard. Only one person survived the horrifying threeday ordeal…
It was an unlikely setting for a massacre. The smartly renovated 18th-century pottery barn on the eastern limit of the Peak District was home to Gill Moran, 38, her husband, Richard, 41, and their daughter, Sarah, 10, plus her mother, Amy Minton, 67, and father, Arthur Minton, 74.
The extended family lived together comfortably and it was a setting for many happy evenings. But the day Billy Hughes turned up – January 12, 1977 – changed everything.
Hughes, 28 – aptly known as ‘Mad Billy’ – was an escaped prisoner and a violent man who’d been in and out of prison since childhood. Earlier that day, he’d attacked two prison officers who were transferring him from Leicester Prison to Chesterfield magistrates’ court, to go on trial for rape and GBH. Producing a knife smuggled out of prison, he stabbed the officers across
their throats, almost killing them. Forcing the driver out, he hijacked the cab, and headed for the moors.
Hughes’ escape was helped by the fact that Derbyshire and much of the north of England was covered in snow, thanks to the worst blizzards in 15 years. The weather would later hamper the search for him.
There were fears that Hughes was on his way to his hometown of Blackpool, where his ex-wife, Jean, and their daughter, Nichola, four, lived. Police quickly placed them out of danger.
Unbeknown to them, though, ‘Mad Billy’ was still in Derbyshire. After walking four miles in appalling conditions, he spotted remote Pottery Cottage in the village of Eastmoor. A perfect hideout.
Going around the back of the house he tried the back-door handle – it gave easily. Inside he found Amy Minton preparing vegetables – she lifted her hand to her mouth in shock when she saw the stranger, armed with two axes.
‘I’m wanted by the police but I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said. It was the start of a threeday ordeal, without parallel in recent history – one that’s still scarred into the psyche of those involved.
For more than 40 years, the details of what really happened have never been told. Gill, now 81, the sole survivor, vowed never to speak about those dreadful days.
But now, Peter Howse, the police chief who saved her life, is finally able to tell the story, using previously unpublished witness statements, crime scene photos and police reports. His book, The Pottery Cottage Murders, has just been published.
‘In all my 34-year career I’ve never had to deal with anything as horrific,’ says Peter, now retired and living in Norfolk. ‘It was the one case which still affects everyone involved.’
When Gill arrived home from work that afternoon, her mum said: ‘Don’t panic Gill, there’s a man with a knife. He’s hiding from the police. Keep calm – he won’t hurt us.’
Fearing for her safety, Gill went along with Hughes’ demands, believing he was only staying with them till dark. But when hubby, Richard, arrived he was confronted by the stranger holding a knife to his wife’s throat: ‘Don’t come near me or I’ll kill her,’ he snarled.
No one moved and, as Howse writes, ‘their fates were sealed’. Before long, all Hughes’ five hostages were bound and gagged in different parts of the house.
Gill was alone in her bedroom when Hughes came in and sexually assaulted her: ‘She shut down her mind,’
Howse writes, ‘telling herself that what she was made to do “meant the difference between life and death, for all of them”.’
Afterwards Hughes offered her a cigarette and Gill took the chance: ‘ Where’s Sarah? You wouldn’t hurt her, would you, Billy?’
The 10-year-old had been adopted by the couple following years of not being able to get pregnant.
Gill fought back tears of relief when he replied: ‘I’ve got a little girl of my own… that’s why I would never hurt Sarah.’
It was a lie. One by one, twisted Hughes killed Gill’s family while cruelly manipulating her.
First her father Arthur, who tried to challenge him. Next, her feisty daughter, who warned ‘Don’t be fooled Mum’ – the last words Gill heard her speak.
Hughes put them both in the annexe part of the house – used as a granny flat – and reassured Gill they were fine, taking them food to eat, while refusing to let her see them.
When police stormed the house they found Sarah dead in her grandparents’ bed, her favourite doll next to her, having been stabbed several times. She’d been killed on the first night and there were plates of untouched food around her. Her grandpa was found dead nearby.
In the meantime, trying to save her family, Gill had even gone out shopping for her captor, buying supplies, beer and cigarettes – including the newspapers where Hughes was front-page news.
When neighbours rang the house asking if she’d heard about the manhunt, she tried to appear normal. Hughes was stood next to her with a knife.
After three days, things came a head when a neighbour twigged something was wrong.
Hughes, acting more and more erratically, decided to take off with Gill as hostage – but not before killing her husband and mother.
After seeing the fatally wounded Amy staggering towards her before falling in a pool of blood, Gill had to ask herself, ‘Am I going mad?’ – convinced that such scenes out of a horror movie were caused by insanity.
After a car chase and shootout, Gill’s ordeal was over. The man who’d tortured her and murdered her family was shot. He lay dead at her side in the car he’d hijacked for his getaway.
However, his evil legacy extended beyond the grave.
In 1998, Hughes’ widow Jean, tormented by what he had done, took her own life. The couple’s daughter, Nichola, moved to escape her father’s legacy.
Gill found happiness once more. She married again, to Jim Mulqueen, the son of her husband’s foster sister Margaret, and the couple had a daughter, who they named Jayne Sarah, in memory of the half-sister she would never get to know.