I forgive my kill Ler son-in-law
Grandfather of stabbed children insists there are ‘no villains, only victims’
The grandfather of three young children who were stabbed to death by their father has insisted he feels no ‘anger or malice’ towards his killer son-in-law.
With extraordinary compassion, ron Tocknell said ceri Fuller was a good father who raised his children with ‘love and joy and laughter’.
in a moving open letter to his local newspaper, Mr Tocknell maintained that the killing was ‘not an act of malice or spite’ and said there were ‘no villains’ in the horrifying episode.
he even said he was ‘proud’ of Mr Fuller, who took his own life after killing his children, and empathised with his ‘pain and confusion’.
Mr Tocknell wrote: ‘Perhaps some of you feel anger toward him. You know him only as the man who did this.
‘ i know him as the man who fell in love with my daughter. i know him as the man who worked tirelessly to support the family he worshipped.
‘i know him as the man who, together with my daughter, raised my beautiful grandchildren in an environment of love and joy and laughter.’
The family, from Milkwall, gloucestershire, were reported missing after sam, 12, Becca, eight, and charlie, seven, failed to attend school on July 12.
Mr Fuller, 35, also failed to turn up for work at paper mill giant glatfelter and police discovered he had fled with his children in the family’s Land rover.
Officers discovered the four bodies in a secluded beauty spot at Poles
‘This was not an act of malice or spite’
coppice, Pontesbury hill, near shrewsbury, shropshire, 75 miles from the family home, on Monday.
Post-mortem examinations carried out by a home Office pathologist revealed that all three children died as a result of stab injuries, while Mr Fuller suffered fatal multiple injuries.
Mr Tocknell said of his 34-year- old daughter: ‘ruth is recovering well and we are well on the road to coming to terms with this. no anger, no malice.
‘i never thought i would ever be among those who are on the receiving end of the sorrow and empathy of the entire nation and i would certainly never have wished for it.
‘But we cannot dictate the random paths our lives take.’
Praising Mr Fuller’s parenting skills, Mr Tocknell continued: ‘he and ruth taught them responsibility so that they always knew why they couldn’t always get their own way and they were able to accept these boundaries with understanding instead of resentment.
‘When he played with them, it was never as an adult amusing the children. he would surrender himself to the joys of playing as if he, too, were a child.
‘When he had to address misbehaviour, he did so with reason and never with punishment.
‘Perhaps we will never understand the torment in ceri’s mind that drove him to such an act but i know that this was not an act of malice or spite.
‘i weep for my daughter’s pain, i weep for the loss of my grandchildren and i weep for ceri’s pain and confusion in equal measures.
‘There are no villains in this dreadful episode. There are only victims. he will always remain a man i am proud to have called my son-in-law.’
Mr Tocknell, from Lydney, gloucestershire, also paid tribute to his ‘ intelligent, articulate and loving’ grandchildren in the letter to the gloucester citizen newspaper.
he said: ‘sam was an astoundingly intelligent boy with a surprisingly sophisticated sense of humour.
‘he was interested in so many things and ate life up with a spoon. he loved computers, natural science, biology, maths, astronomy and all the studies that could help him to figure out exactly how the universe works.
‘i am so grateful for the time that i had with him.’
Of his elder granddaughter, he said: ‘Becca was the quiet one. Until very recently, she was intensely shy and introverted. in the last year or so, however, she began to blossom.
‘she became more outward and able to communicate her thoughts. she was artistic and articulate and very much like her mother.’
And paying tribute to the youngest of the three, he went on: ‘ charlie was extroverted and assertive [and was] as keen for hugs and kisses as she was for photo opportunities.’
Mr Tocknell added movingly: ‘We had them for so short a time. no grandparent should have to bury their grandchildren and no parent should have to bury their sons or daughters.
‘ But this has happened and we must deal with it. each day is hard to get through. Today has been hard, yesterday was hard and tomorrow will be hard.
‘The pain will be with us for ever and will never ease – but we will get stronger and we will survive this.’
Thanking all who had left flowers and offered condolences and prayers, he went on: ‘ Despite the nature of what occurred, there are no real villains in this terrible incident, only victims.
‘i would ask all to suspend judgment and find compassion for all.’
University to study molecular and cellular biology. The pair met up again when they were 21 and went to live in Yorkshire together.
Their first child, sam, was born when they were aged just 23 and living in a small terrace house in the centre of huddersfield.
A decade ago, they returned to the Forest of Dean where they had grown up and where ceri got a job at glatfelter, a global company that manufactures paper-based food and drink products.
Two more children followed and the family seemed happy and complete. in August 2009 they celebrated their wedding with a fancy-dress party. ruth, the daughter of artist ron Tocknell and his holistic therapist wife Anne, added fairy wings and pixie ears to her flowing wedding gown, while ceri dressed as a character from star Wars. ‘My Obi Wan’, was how ruth captioned the picture on Facebook. From the outside then, there were no signs that anything was wrong, nothing to hint at the horror brewing at the heart of the family.
if anything, it seemed that ceri was the calm, dependable bedrock of the family, the product of a typically stable, middle-class upbringing, on whom his slightly more bohemian wife could always rely.
He WAs one of three children born to biochemist David Fuller and his wife geraldine. The couple are divorced, and Mr Fuller, 67, lives in a £500,000 detached house near hereford with a new partner, while ceri’s mother, 64, has remarried and lives in Blakeney, gloucs.
ceri alluded to his increasingly domesticated life while writing on a social networking site: ‘settling into the working world — becoming materialistic. Missing my college and uni days. never seem to have enough time anymore for just chillin’! is it me or are the years seeming to fly by quicker and quicker?’
According to his father he was ‘very private’. Those who knew him say he gave little away about his innermost feelings. On the other hand, ruth, a talented artist and keen belly dancer, openly expressed her deepest thoughts in internet blogs.
in one poignant entry from 2006, she wrote: ‘For the longest time my relationship with ceri was very fragile and sometimes i still find it hard to have faith in our strength as a couple, but last night ceri dealt with something that made him feel threatened by talking to me about it, and instead of pushing me away, he held me closer. it made me feel so good. it made me feel worth the risk of trusting and that really is a big thing for us.’
in other writings, ruth referred to her ‘gypsie blood’ and talked about the conflict between her yearning to be free and her love for her growing family. she also wrote fondly of growing old with ceri.
One entry, written six years ago when her youngest child was one, was entitled: ‘Bored, bored, bored.’
‘Oh my god, i’m so bored with myself right now,’ she wrote. ‘When i was younger…relationships and jobs rarely lasted longer than six months, so i was always meeting someone new, doing something new, being someone new.
‘Don’t get me wrong, i’m so glad i finally got over my commitment issues, met the love of my life and settled down to have a family, but sometimes i really feel like i want to break free just for a little while and do something wild.
‘When the kids are all grown up, ceri and i have promised that we’ll pack up a tartan shopping trolley and drag our dodgy hips off into the sunset together.’
in another entry, she wrote about being a mother: ‘nothing beats being a mum but you have to pretend to be all together and responsible when you’re a parent.
‘When my three are all having a great time together without fighting i can just sit on the stairs listening to them all day and it’s the best feeling in the world.’
so what on earth could have driven ceri to kill the three children clearly so deeply loved by both of their parents?
his disappearance with the youngsters was described as ‘completely out of character’ by police officers when they began looking for them on the Thursday.
ceri’s father-in-law, ruth’s dad ron, posted a message on his Facebook page: ‘if anyone who knows ceri has any idea of his whereabouts, please contact glos police immediately. We are all so worried.’
it is not clear whether ruth had been away and returned home to find her children gone, but police were unsure at first whether ceri had set off with them on Wednesday night or Thursday morning.
The family car, a red Land rover Freelander estate, was spotted in the Leominster area of herefordshire — not far from ceri’s father’s home — at around midday on Thursday, and then in newtown, Powys, at around 3pm.
FrOM there it was driven to the Welshpool area, where it was picked up on ccTV just after 3.30pm. At some point after that, ceri drove his children to Poles coppice at Pontesbury hill, near shrewsbury, shropshire. he left the car near a footpath at the entrance to the remote woods.
When the car was finally spotted, rescue crews — including an air ambulance from rAF cosford — raced to the scene, but quickly realised nothing could be done.
As officers undertook a fingertip search of the area, three tiny blue body bags could be seen lying in the grassy undergrowth of a clearing in the picturesque woodland.
A day later, the knife used to kill the children was found by officers, and post mortems confirmed that all three died from stab injuries. A fourth post mortem showed that ceri died of multiple injuries after jumping 65ft into a vast, disused quarry close to the idyllic spot where he killed his children.
But police officers are still interviewing people and combing through ccTV footage to try to work out the route ceri and the children took in their last hours. Ultimately, they are trying to understand the unfathomable — how a father could, in such a brutal manner, take the lives of the children he loved.
ceri’s brother-in-law nicholas Ballard said this week that the family would ‘ love to know’ what had provoked ceri to commit such an atrocity. ruth also released a brief statement, saying: ‘i don’t have the words to describe how i feel at the moment.’
An inquest is due to be opened into the four deaths, which may offer some kind of explanation for this unbearable horror.
But the painful truth, as ruth and ceri’s grieving families must know all too well, is that the darkest secrets of the human soul can often remain hidden, even from loved ones.