Mairead Philpott: 'I looked after the kids on my own while my husband Mick spent the nights with his lover'

MICK Philpott spent his nights with lover Lisa Willis, leaving his Mairead to sleep on her own, a court was told.

Despite the three of them living in the same home, 18 Victory Road, Allenton, Mairead said Mick "wanted Lisa all the time".

The claim was made in an interview she had with police following her arrest after the fire at the house last May that killed the six children she had with Mick.

Mick, 56, and Mairead, 31, deny the manslaughter of , Duwayne, 13, Jade, 10, John, nine, Jack, seven, Jesse, six, and five-year-old Jayden.

Family friend Paul Mosley, 45, of Cecil Street, Derby, is also charged with their

manslaughter.

It is alleged a fire was started in a bid to frame Ms Willis, who was in a custody battle with Philpott for her five children.

The interview was reenacted at Nottingham Crown Court, with Sergeant Joanne James, reading out the answers given by Mairead, in response to the questions she was asked, read out by prosecuting barrister James House.

Asked about the domestic situation at 18 Victory Road, where she lived with her husband, their six children, Ms Willis, and Ms Willis's five children, four of whom were fathered by Mick Philpott, Mairead said: "For the past three or four years I felt like a housemaid.

"Mick took Lisa everywhere and just left me with all the kids.

"Mick asked me three or four times for a divorce so he could marry Lisa but I said no."

Sgt James asked Mairead: "How did he ask you for a divorce?"

She answered: "He would just walk in and say 'Mairead, can I have a divorce?' and I would just say back 'no, you're not having one'.

"He still wanted me and the kids at the house but he just wanted to divorce me and marry Lisa."

Sgt James said: "How did you feel about that?"

Mairead said: "I was upset but I didn't want to be on my own, so I didn't question it.

"I thought 'well, I'm here with the kids'.

"Mick wanted Lisa all the time. I was in the house with the kids and he would sleep in the caravan with her most of the time."

Mairead said on February 20 or 21, less than two weeks after Ms Willis left the house with her children, she took an overdose of 120 paracetamol tablets in the front room.

She told Sgt James she took the tablets with some Coke and had only drank one rum and coke and was not drunk when she decided to attempt suicide.

She said she fell asleep and then felt ill when she woke and went to be sick at the back of the house.

She said Mr Philpott asked her what the problem was and she told him she had taken an overdose and he called an ambulance.

She said she remained in the Royal Derby Hospital for three to four days while he looked after their six children on his own.

Sgt James said: "What led you to attempt suicide?"

Mairead said: "The kids that Lisa had taken were mine. I had mothered them, nursed them all the time that Lisa was in the caravan with Mick.

"I got them up in the morning, got them ready for school. They were mine, they were not hers and she had taken them."

Sgt James asked how the dynamics of the house changed after Ms Willis walked out with her five children.

Mairead said: "They were upset, I was upset, everyone was upset. The kids were having nightmares and started wetting the bed, the younger ones anyway.

"Duwayne being older was OK to start with then a week after she left he broke down saying 'it is not fair, Jordan is not here'. These were his brothers and sisters. Jade had gone from having four sisters to her just being the only girl in the house.

"At first Mick blamed me (for Lisa leaving) saying it was because I shouted at the kids all the time."

Mairead, in her interview, also went through what happened on the night of the fire.

She said she was woken by the fire alarm and saw "a bright light" coming from the edge of the door that linked the kitchen and the lounge.

She said: "I thought 'what the hell is going on?' It was like a constant screaming, I heard a pop like a bag of crisps. Mick went into the kitchen and flames came shooting through the room. I didn't go in the lounge, Mick wouldn't let me, he said 'you can't (come in) there's a fire'."

Mairead told the police she watched from the back garden as her husband climbed a letter to try and smash a window before she handed him a wrench with which he did break the window of Jade's bedroom.

She said she got to the front of the house after being taken there from her back garden by the police.

She said: "I started screaming. I just wanted to get back and get the kids but they said 'you can't, you can't just let them do their job, you can see the kids at the hospital'.

"Mick was outside the house trying to get back in but five or six police stopped him from getting inside."

Sgt James asked Mairead: "Is that something Mick told you after or did you see that yourself?"

Mrs Philpott said: "I saw that myself."

Asked by Sgt James if she knew anyone who bore a grudge against her, Mairead said: "Only Lisa's sister, Amanda. She threatened me a couple of months before the fire. That's why I have been too scared to go out and go to work."

Sgt James said: "What are your thoughts about how the fire started?"

Mairead said: "I don't know."

Sgt James asked: "Nothing went through your head?"£

Mairead said: "No."

The trial continues.

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