Claire Throssell has revealed the heartbreaking reason her sons doused themselves in her perfume two weeks before their father killed them in a house fire. Jack, 12, and Paul, nine, died after their abusive dad, Darren Sykes, lured them to the attic by pretending there was a new train set and then barricaded them inside and set fire to the family home.
Sykes also died in the blaze, which happened during a court-approved access visit in October 2014. Claire, from Penistone, South Yorkshire, had warned Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) and Social Services that she believed her ex-husband was capable of killing Jack and Paul.
Perfume discovery two weeks before the fire
Speaking on the Tom's Talks Podcast, Claire recalled catching her sons spraying themselves with her perfume just two weeks before their deaths. She said: “Just two weeks before what happened, happened, I caught them spraying themselves with my perfume and I had to bite my lip because my perfume’s expensive and I thought, ‘My bottle’s going down and I’m not wearing it. What is happening?’”
When she asked what they were doing, they told her: “It’s not that, we are scared of dad and we are taking you with us. We want a part of you with us wherever you go. Where you are mum is home.”
Court-approved access and the fire
Claire had separated from Sykes because he had been violent and abusive to her and the boys. However, after Sykes filed for custody, he was awarded five hours of unsupervised access to the boys every week. On October 22, 2014, during one of those visits, he lit 14 different fires using petrol before barricading the house shut.
Claire said: “The only safety plan the police could come up with was buying them a mobile phone and if they felt scared, text me and I could go fetch them. They were nine and 12 years old…”
Last words and campaign for change
Speaking to the Mirror last year, Claire said: “The last words Jack said, as the firefighters desperately tried to rescue him, was, ‘My dad did this and he did it on purpose’.” Paul died that night while Jack clung to life for the next five days before severe burns and medical complications brought his suffering to a close.
Since then, Claire has campaigned for family law to change. Last October, the government announced plans to repeal the presumption that children should have contact with both parents in relation to family court decisions. It is now mandatory for courts to establish whether children are at risk of harm from a contact order.
Claire, who is now an ambassador for Women’s Aid and IDAS (Independent Domestic Abuse Service), also published a book in October called For My Boys. Speaking last year, she said: “I will not let Jack and Paul’s deaths be in vain. There isn’t a single minute of a single day when I don’t think about my sons. Jack should now be 23 and Paul 20. Their lives were cruelly taken far too early, and I was robbed of the memories and lives we should have shared together.”
