"Incurable" cancer patient who killed family and predicted to die in prison - still alive 13 years on
He was trialling a new combination of drugs when he killed his wife and daughter
A cancer patient who killed his wife and daughter in a disastrous reaction to chemotherapy in 2013 - predicted to “die in prison” - is still alive in custody 13 years on.
Peter Redfern, aged 70 at the time, strangled his wife Jean before taking a hammer to his daughter and bludgeoning her to death at their Wath-upon-Dearne home in July 2013.
He admitted murdering his daughter Sarah, 33, and the manslaughter of his wife Jean, 67, and was jailed for a minimum of 17 years in January 2014.
The retired gas fitter, who had lived "hitherto blameless life", was trialling a new combination of chemotherapy drugs when the killings happened - having been diagnosed with a form of incurable bone cancer in May 2013.
The judge in the case, Mr Justice Males, pointing to research showing an “adverse psychiatric reaction” to the cocktail in a “very small percentage of cases”, said: “Tragically, that was to prove to be so in your case."
Redfern had, said the judge, killed his wife of 45-years "on impulse” when his “mental functioning was abnormally affected".
When sentencing Redfern at Sheffield Crown Court the judge told him setting the 17-year minimum term was “academic” in a sense, adding: “It is as certain as anything can be that you will die in prison".
However the Ministry of Justice has confirmed this week that Mr Redfern is still alive in custody - though the health status of the man, now in his 80s, is unknown.
At his 2014 sentencing hearing, Redfern wept in the dock as details of the killings were aired.
After the killing Mr Redfern dialled 999, telling a call handler: "I've just killed my wife and daughter.”
The two women were later found with plastic bags over their heads tied in place with electrical flex.
The pensioner had, the court heard, killed Jean first before making the "deliberate and dreadful decision" to kill daughter Sarah when she arrived home - not wanting her to see what had happened to her mother.
Taking the shop worker by surprise and forcing a carrier bag over her head, the deranged father killed her by “hitting her repeatedly on the head with severe force".
The judge commented that the court could not imagine how Sarah felt “in what must thankfully have been those brief moments” before her death - with hammer blows “raining down on her”.
Taking Redfern's "hitherto blameless life" into account, the judge accepted the “tragic events” would never have taken place “if not for the side effects of the drugs".