Kyle Clifford: Break-up that ended in crossbow killings of BBC presenter John Hunt’s wife and daughters

WARNING: GRAPHIC DETAILS

It was a scene of unimaginable horror that left even hardened detectives shaken.

Imprisoned in their own home, the wife and two daughters of BBC presenter John Hunt were slaughtered with a crossbow and a butcher’s knife in a bloody rampage by a spurned ex-boyfriend hell-bent on revenge.

On Wednesday former soldier Kyle Clifford dramatically confessed to murdering his former girlfriend Louise Hunt, 25, and her sister Hannah, 28, with a crossbow, before stabbing their mother Carol, 61, in a frenzied attack at their Hertfordshire home last July.

Shortly before the attack, mother-of-three Carol had told friends at her local gym that her youngest daughter was involved in a “messy break-up” with her boyfriend.

A friend said: “She said her daughter’s split with her boyfriend was messy. She didn’t go into too much detail, but you could see she was concerned.”

Clifford, 26, changed his original plea, admitting the triple murder and false imprisonment of his ex-partner at a pre-trial hearing at Cambridge Crown Court.

But the ex-security guard will still face a trial in March as he continues to deny raping Louise on the day of her death.

The sickening rampage on a quiet summer evening on July 9 last year started around 6.30pm when neighbours of the BBC racing commentator heard piercing screams from his home which were initially mistaken for that of a distressed child.

Later they were to realise that it was a woman’s desperate cries coming from the £800,000 (AUD$1.5m) suburban property after the family had been ambushed by the crossbow-wielding former serviceman.

Just moments after the screams finally fell silent, Clifford fled the four-bedroom house in a quiet culde-sac in Bushey, Hertfordshire, leaving behind a trail of bloodshed.

A short time later, a 999 call was made from the property.

Bleeding heavily with a crossbow bolt lodged in her chest, Hannah Hunt attempted to get help for her family as she lay dying.

In a heartbreaking call, she said her younger sister had been shot, her mother had been wounded and she had been hit in the chest and feared she is going to die.

The phone then went dead.

With the last of her strength, Hannah dialled 999 again and managed to ask for an ambulance before the phone call finished abruptly.

Officers who rushed to the scene arrived at 7.10pm to find the front door open and Hannah barely alive, lying in the doorway with a bolt sticking out of her chest.

In an adjacent room to the right of the front door, they found her sister tied to a chair with her hands and ankles bound with duct tape.

Louise had been shot with a crossbow bolt through the chest while held captive with her arms tied behind her back.

Her mother was found lying in the same room.

In a savage frenzy, Carol had been stabbed with a ten-inch knife in the knee, hands, back and torso as she attempted to defend herself and her family.

Officers quickly alerted Mr Hunt and the popular BBC pundit was met off a train by officers on his journey home from working at Lingfield Park racecourse.

He rushed to the scene, but paramedics were unable to save the three victims who died a short time later.

It wasn’t long before detectives were on the trail of the killer after a figure was seen darting out of an alleyway directly behind the property.

Clad in black, Clifford was captured on camera calmly striding away with a crossbow tucked under his arm, hidden underneath a white sheet.

Footage from a nearby door-cam showed a bearded man carrying a heavy bag of weaponry.

Chillingly, he passed within a few feet of a female neighbour who stood alone on her driveway, startled by the sight of the barely concealed weapon at 6.50pm.

Within hours, a national manhunt was under way for the former soldier who was named by police in a rare step to protect the public.

Police announced that Clifford, who had previously served in, but dropped out of, the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, had “targeted” the family.

Neighbours revealed that Clifford had been in a relationship with Louise, but she split up with him a week before the attack.

Their break-up left her so shaken that she had crashed her car into a telegraph pole outside the family home days before the attack.

In her final post on X, Louise reposted a message saying: “I admire women who leave.

“It takes a lot of strength to break a tie. It takes a lot of self-love to choose yo self (sic).’”

The next day, officers found Clifford’s abandoned car in Enfield, North London. Hours later, they found him hiding in Lavender Hill Cemetery just a minutes’ walk away.

As police closed in, Clifford shot himself with the crossbow.

Officers were able to save his life but he spent months in hospital before being considered well enough to be charged.

On Wednesday the killer, now confined to a wheelchair, pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, one of false imprisonment against his ex-girlfriend, and two counts of possession of offensive weapons, namely an MX-405 crossbow and Scimitar butcher’s knife.

Appearing via video link from HMP Belmarsh, the killer spoke only to confirm his name and his pleas.

Clifford showed no emotion as he admitted the murders.

Clifford joined the Queen’s Dragoon Guards in 2019 but quit three years later after struggling to adapt to the disciplined lifestyle.

He then took a number of low-paid jobs and eventually found work as a security guard in north London.

It can now be revealed that Clifford’s older brother is serving life in prison for murdering a moped rider who had damaged his car.

Bradley Clifford was jailed in 2018 at the age of 23 for mowing down Soban Khan, 18, and attacking Jahshua Francis, 19, after they threw a bottle at his Ford Mustang following an altercation outside a bar in Enfield.

Residents said Kyle Clifford was close to his older brother and had been devastated by his conviction.

On Wednesday Mr Hunt, whose voice is known to millions as a BBC Radio 5 Live racing commentator, was not in court to see the pleas.

He has previously spoken of “the horrid evil that’s swept through our lives, wreaking devastation on an unimaginable scale”, adding: “The devastation that we are experiencing cannot be put into words”.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is considering whether laws on crossbows need to be tightened.

There is currently no registration system for owning a crossbow, no requirement for a licence and they are easy to buy online.

But it is illegal for anyone under 18 to buy or own one, with anyone caught carrying the weapon in public without a reasonable excuse facing up to four years behind bars.

Clifford will go on trial for rape on March 3.