Crossbow triple killer Kyle Clifford has been found guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend, the daughter of BBC star John Hunt.
Clifford, a former soldier aged 26, brutally murdered 61-year-old Carol Hunt with a ten-inch knife. He then proceeded to use a crossbow to kill her daughters Louise, 25, and Hannah, 28, at their residence in Bushey, Hertfordshire on July 9 of the previous year.
Clifford had been unable to accept that Louise dumped him because of his offensive and ‘belittling’ behaviour that troubled friends and family.
In a cowardly act, Clifford did not attend the trial. He has now been found guilty of the heinous crime, including the rape of Louise immediately after killing her mother but just before turning the crossbow on her and her other sister.
The jury retired for just 45 minutes before delivering their verdict, with Clifford found guilty of rape unanimously.
Family and friends applauded from the public area as they heard his fate. Clifford will be sentenced on Tuesday.
In her closing speech, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told the jury that Clifford had decided that if he couldn’t have Louise, ‘no one else could’.
He hadn’t restrained and gagged her mother, Carol, or her sister Hannah, and the only reason could be to rape her, she added.
During the trial, the prosecutor Morgan expressed that Clifford had a controlling and violent nature, stating: ‘If he wanted her, he would have her. He would control her. He would rape her. He would murder her and members of her family.’
She added: ‘Kyle Clifford was determined that if he could not have Louise Hunt, then no one else could.
Kyle Clifford, 26, cowardly skipped today’s trial for raping his ex-girlfriend Louise
Louise Hunt (pictured), who was formerly in a relationship with Clifford, was killed alongside her mother and sister in the crossbow attack in Bushey
The crossbow used by Clifford is pictured in a photo issued by Hertfordshire Police
The knife packaging is pictured in a photo issued by police
‘He knew the family did not support his relationship with her. He was angered and that anger would conclude with the planning of sexual violence as a means of acting out of spite in a final act before her death.’
Questioning why only Louise was tied up and silenced, Ms Morgan said: ‘Why did he need to restrain Louise Hunt? He hadn’t restrained Carol. What was it he needed to do to other that involved that restraint?
‘She was silenced – silenced so nobody could hear as she was being raped.’
The defendant’s claim that he had consensual sex with Louise on June 23 – causing the deposit of DNA that was found during an intimate swab after her death – was also questioned.
Ms Morgan said Clifford had ‘humiliated and belittled’ her at a friend’s wedding in Scarborough on June 22 by boasting of seeing other women and criticising her cooking.
Was it likely they would have had ‘sexual activity on the morning of June 23?’ she asked. Louise ended the relationship after they returned.
The prosecutor also reminded the jury that a forensic scientist had concluded that the quantity and position of the defendant’s DNA meant it was not a ‘relic of historic sex’.
She told the that a ‘cool and calm view of the evidence shows that only conceivable conclusion’ was to find Clifford guilty on the rape charge.
Triple killer Clifford (right) has been seen for the first time in a wheelchair as he refused to answer questions in a police interview
Brave Hannah Hunt called 999 during the attacks and was still alive when police arrived at the home in Bushey, but later died from her wounds
John Hunt is pictured with his wife Carol, who was killed alongside two of their two daughters
Mr Justice Joel Bennathan told the jury: ‘This was a dreadful incident, I’m sure you’ll agree.
‘It’s unspeakable what friends and family have witnessed in this court. They have conducted themselves with huge restraint and I pay tribute to them.’
In audio recordings from two external CCTV cameras at the family’s house on July 9 last year, Clifford could be heard engaging Carol, 61, in conversation.
Tellingly, she confessed to feeling like she had ‘seen a ghost’ when he turned up but was too kindly to try and turn him away.
He told her: ‘I’m, er, dropping off some of Louise’s stuff.’
Once inside, he cut Carol down with a flurry of blows from a knife, then lay in wait for an hour for Louise, who was working in a pod in the garden where she ran her dog grooming business.
When she came in, he subjected her to a two-and-a-half-hour ordeal, during which he restrained her with duct tape, gagged her to stop her screams, and raped her.
He coldly despatched her with a crossbow bolt to the chest – caught on audio as a sickening ‘whooshing’ sound – just before her sister Hannah, 28, arrived.
Hannah was heard to say ‘Kyle, I swear to god…’ shortly after entering the house and going upstairs. Seconds later, she sent a text message to her partner, Alex Klein, saying: ‘Kyle here. Police now. He’s tying us up.’
Two minutes later there was a loud ‘thud’, believed to be the firing of another crossbow bolt.
Clifford has been found guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend Louise
Hannah managed to call 999 and identified the intruder as Clifford. Emergency services arrived at 7.10pm to find her ‘struggling for life’ near the front door and were unable to save her. Louise and Carol were already dead.
Clifford – whose older brother Bradley is currently in jail serving life for murder after mowing down a moped driver and their passenger with his car over an argument about a woman – left the scene in his car after the murders and was found hiding in Lavender Hill Cemetery, near his home in Enfield, north London, the following day.
He shot himself with the crossbow as officers approached and was in hospital for more than two months. He is now paralysed from the chest down.
He told police during an interview: ‘I’m sorry… what I did was atrocious.’
Louise’s friends and family considered Clifford ‘disrespectful, rude and arrogant’ and spoke of his ‘nasty temper’, the court heard.
Clifford previously admitted three counts of murder, one of false imprisonment against Louise, and two counts of possession of offensive weapons – the crossbow and the knife.
The ‘final catalyst for the break-up’ with Louise came two weeks before the murders when the pair went to a wedding in Scarborough, where he boasted of bedding other women, Cambridge Crown Court previously heard.
Jurors were told Clifford ‘implied that he had slept with a number of people… which upset Louise’. He also made ‘patronising comments about Louise’s ability to use an oven’.
The sick killer had also praised offensive Andrew Tate videos before the former couple’s split.
In legal submissions that the jury didn’t hear, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC argued the Tate videos should form part of the case but the application was denied by Mr Justice Joel Bennathan.
She told him: ‘Twenty-four hours before this attack, to be searching for Andrew Tate is revealing for your mindset at that time as to how you view women and why sexual violence was an important part of this attack.
‘He was seeking to control Louise Hunt through a final act of spite, so it is highly pertinent.’
Clifford horrified Louise’s friends by laughing at sick footage posted online by Tate, a self-confessed misogynist and rape suspect. One involved animal cruelty. He also spoke in favour or a road rage post.
It can now also be revealed that Clifford’s brother, Bradley, was jailed for life and given a minimum 23-year jail term in 2018 for murder after mowing down a moped driver and their passenger with his car following an argument over a woman.
The defendant spoke to his brother twice in the week leading up to the murders, during which they discussed his purchase of the crossbow and knife he bought for the incident. There is no suggestion Bradley, who remains in prison, knew what they would be used for.
