Incestuous Sheffield parents spend nearly one year behind bars for killing sons

An incestuous couple who killed two of their children have nearly spent a year behind bars for a crime which shocked and sickened Sheffield.
By Claire Lewis
Published 5th May 2020, 09:34 BST
Updated 5th May 2020, 09:35 BST
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

Sarah Barrass and Brandon Machin were jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 35 years behind bars last November after admitting the heinous crime.

LATEST: Sex offender jailed for moving to Sheffield without telling police

The couple strangled Tristan Barrass, 13, and Blake Barrass, 14, before placing bin bags over the boys’ heads in a property in Gregg House Road, Shiregreen, on Friday, May 24.

Brandon Machin and Sarah Barrass are both serving life behind barsBrandon Machin and Sarah Barrass are both serving life behind bars
Brandon Machin and Sarah Barrass are both serving life behind bars

COURT: Deaf homeless teen smashed door in Sheffield to find shelter

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Barrass, 36 and her half-brother Machin, 40, were arrested on the day of the double murder and have remained in custody ever since.

Read More
The Sheffield suburb told to increase security after burglars break into homes

They have been told they must spend over three decades behind bars before they can even be considered for parole.

L-R: Blake and Tristan BarrassL-R: Blake and Tristan Barrass
L-R: Blake and Tristan Barrass

Their sentences were among the longest ever handed down in Sheffield.

Sheffield Crown Court heard that over fears that their children were at risk of being taken into care, the killers forced the teenage boys, as well as two more of their children, to take tablets gathered from around the family home.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

They had expected the cocktail of drugs to end their lives but when their plan failed they killed the two oldest children before attempting to drown another child in the bath.

Barrass had planned to kill herself after killing all the children.

The plan was then for Machin to discover what had happened and raise the alarm.

Speaking after the parents were jailed, Edmund Hulbert from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This was an appalling crime in which two young lives were lost, and a family torn apart, leaving a community in shock.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Two of the surviving children witnessed their older siblings being attacked and the trauma that all the children have experienced, and will continue to experience, is unimaginable.”

Prosecutors told how Barrass had requested help with the children from the local authority, texting a friend to say: “I've thought of every possible solution to this mess. Mass murder, putting them all in care, checking in to the local nut house.

“I love my kids too much to kill them, I can't put them into care for the same reason.”