Mother fears the day the ex-partner who killed her son is released from prison

[Alison J Stevens]

Mother fears the day the ex-partner who killed her son is released from prison

Ann Houghton

By dan martin

A grieving mother has vowed her brutal ex-partner will never know the whereabouts of their dead son's ashes.

David Brown is serving an eight-year prison term for the manslaughter of five-year-old Jack Houghton, after starting a house fire which killed him.

The 76-year-old, from Beaumont Leys, Leicester, is due to be released in December, and has allegedly said he would like to visit the boy's ashes when he is freed.

But Jack's mother, Ann, has said he does not deserve to have anything more to do with their son's memory. Speaking after Brown was made the subject of a rare violent offender order – which means he can have no contact with Ann or go near her home in Anstey when he is released – she said: "He will know where Jack's ashes are over my dead body.

"He has no right to know that, given what he has done. I wish I had never set eyes on him.

"The only thing I do not regret is having Jack, who was everything to me. He was my little angel and that has been taken away."

Brown started the fire which killed Jack in November 2004, four years after the end of his on-off relationship with Ann.

After hitting Ann over the head with a wok and dousing her in petrol, he set fire to her home when she ran to get help from neighbours. Jack was trapped in the dining room.

Although Ann made desperate attempts to save her little boy, she was beaten back by the smoke and flames.

Brown admitted manslaughter and was jailed.

Police applied for the violent offender order last week, and he faces being arrested and returned to prison if it is breached. However, Ann says she is still worried about his impending release.

The 54-year-old said: "I would like to thank the police for applying for the order and the judge for granting it. The order is something that will protect me, but he is not a person who likes being told what to do so I do not know how much attention he will pay to it.

"I do not trust him an inch. I think I would be foolish to expect any peace until he is dead.

"I would be happier it if he was kept behind bars where I know he can't do anything."

Heartbroken Ann said she did not want Brown wrecking her attempts to rebuild her life.

She said: "Even to this day, I have flashbacks to the night and then the next day having to go and identify his body. I saw him on the slab and that is an image I will never lose.

"After the trial, I wanted to go to see him in prison. It wasn't because I wanted to hear him say sorry.

"He probably remembers the picture of Jack as a little boy playing happily and I wanted to tell him about that image I had of Jack in the mortuary so that was the last thing he remembered every night before he closed his eyes.

"There is not a day when I do not think about Jack," she said. "He would have been 12 now and I sometimes see his friends in the village. They have moved up to big school and look so smart in their uniforms and it makes me sad.

"I will never have that with Jack. I won't see him grow up and share those moments mums have with their kids."

The court order means that for five years, Brown is forbidden from contacting Ann and 12 other people. He is banned from going to Anstey, Bradgate Park and Beaumont Leys.

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/FEARS-KILLER-DAD-LET-PRI...

My thoughts, what is wrong with the judiciary in the UK, 5 years in prison, for starting a fire that caused the death of his Son, and his wife has suffered domestic violence from this individual.

There is very little Justice for the innocent in the UK, the perpetrators of such horrendous crimes,have very limited sentences.

The criminal will be paroled and released from prison in December, he should be kept well out of the area, Leicestershire.

He has been banned from going any where near to his wife, banned from the immediate area of Anstey,where is wife lives, but will be free to walk the streets of Leicester and other towns in the area, there could be a chance that he could possibly bump into his wife, while she is out shopping in the City centre.

The headline says it all, a very lenient sentence for the crime has committed.