MURDER SCENE:

brick and raping his girlfriend in the Derbyshire town, Hughes had stolen a boning knife from the prison kitchens and slashed the necks of two prison guards to get away.

Aided by the heaviest snowfall in 40 years, which covered his footprints and meant he could not be tracked by dogs, Hughes stumbled across Pottery Cottage, an isolated farmhouse in Eastmoor.

After picking up two axes kept outside for chopping wood he crept into the house and took Gill, 38, her husband Richard, 36, and their adopted 10-yearold daughter Sarah, as well as Gill’s parents Amy and Arthur Minton, 68 and 72, hostage.

For three days he used the threat of violence towards Arthur and Sarah, whom he had secretly killed on the first night in another part of the house, to

persuade the terrified Gill, Richard and Amy to obey his orders.

After twice raping Gill he took her as he fled three days later, having stabbed Richard and Amy to death before leaving but telling her they were alive and well.

The bloodbath at Pottery Cottage shocked the nation and still haunts the police officers called to deal with it.

Crime scene photographer John Slater has been plagued by a recurring nightmare where he goes into the house and is photographing the bodies, but when he gets to little Sarah she sits up and says: “I am not dead.”

Peter, now 82, who saved Gill from the killer after an 80mph chase on icy roads across the moors in the small village of Rainbow, Cheshire, has never spoken about it until now, 43 years later. After an illustrious