A FORMER Mansfield man has been found guilty of manslaughter after six of his children died in a house fire.
Mick and Mairead Philpott were convicted by jurors at Nottingham Crown Court of the unlawful killing of the six siblings in the blaze at the family home in Victory Road, Derby, on May 11 last year.
Family friend Paul Mosley was also found guilty of the same offence at Nottingham Crown Court.
The blaze was part of a "plan" Mick Philpott had to frame his former mistress Lisa Willis, 29, who had left the family home three months earlier.
Mr Philpott lived in Mansfield in the 1990s and his links to Notts were made apparent throughout the trial.
Before Mr Philpott moved to Derby, he was in a relationship with a Nottingham woman who described him in court as a "Jekyll and Hyde" character.
During the trial, the mother-of-two, Heather Kehoe, said Philpott beat her when their second child, Aiden, was born a boy and not a girl.
She told how she met him while she was still a 14-year-old schoolgirl and he was 37, at a fishing lake near her home in Rainworth.
She told the court that within a year, they had started a sexual relationship and at one time they were caught in the bedroom of the Mansfield home he shared with his then wife, Pamela Lomax.
Following this, Philpott left their home and took Miss Kehoe with him to Derby. By now she was 16 and had gone with Philpott against the wishes of her parents.
She said: "It was March 16, 1996. I remember the date because it is two weeks and two days after my 16th birthday."
By September of that year, Miss Kehoe had fallen pregnant with their first child, Mikey.
She said: "I felt very homesick. I told him [Philpott] I wanted to go home and he just flipped. He told me it wasn't happening. He put the fear of God into me. I felt I did not have any options but to stay."
Following the house fire, Mikey Philpott, half-brother of the six children killed in the blaze, who was living with his godfather in Clipstone, started fundraising to support the family and help pay for the funerals of the six children.
When the appeal was launched, he said: "I want justice for the kids."
As the jury delivered its verdicts yesterday, Philpott stood in the dock, staring straight ahead with his hands clasped in front of him.
As the court heard guilty verdicts in respect of his wife, he shook his head and she looked down at the floor and fought back tears, while clutching a tissue in both her hands.
Mosley showed no emotion as he heard the verdicts.
As the judge rose for a short break after emotional outbursts in the packed public gallery, Philpott, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and pink tie, crossed himself and was heard to say: "It's not over yet."
People in the public gallery erupted in tears and shouts as the verdicts came in.
In a statement read on the steps of Nottingham Crown Court by Detective Constable Maria Needs, Mick Philpott's sister Dawn Bestwick, said: "My family and I have attended court each and every day and listened objectively to all the evidence in this trial to understand what happened to our six beautiful children on May 11, 2012.
"Our presence in court was to find out the truth. Following this verdict, we, the family of Michael Philpott, believe justice has been served."
Jade Philpott, 10, John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six, and Jayden, five, died on the morning of the fire on May 11, 2012.
Mrs Philpott's son from a previous relationship, 13-year-old Duwayne, died later in hospital.
Mick and Mairead Philpott and Mosley will be sentenced later today.
