CCTV shows movements of triple killer on day of his knife and crossbow attacks

CCTV footage showing the movements of a triple killer on the day he fatally shot his former partner and her sister with a crossbow and stabbed their mother to death with a butcher’s knife has been played to jurors in court.

Kyle Clifford is seen parking his car in streets near the family home of his ex-partner, Louise Hunt, before walking to the address in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and knocking on the door.

Footage from a camera at the front of the home, in Ashlyn Close, shows the 26-year-old on the doorstep on July 9 last year, and audio recorded his conversation with his former partner’s mother.

He is dressed all in black, wearing a rucksack and holding a white plastic bag.

Carol Hunt, 61, the wife of BBC racing commentator John Hunt, answers the door and Clifford says he is “just dropping off some of Louise’s stuff”.

Mrs Hunt responds: “I’ve seen a ghost.”

Prosecutors told Cambridge Crown Court that Clifford deceived Mrs Hunt to gain access to the address and then took a knife from his backpack to kill her.

In audio, Clifford says he has got them a card “to say bye” and has brought items to return.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said: “As the defendant went into the door he took the backpack from his back and he spoke of the card.”

Further CCTV footage shows him leaving the address – to collect the crossbow from his car – returning with it hidden under a sheet and letting himself back into the house with a key.

Jurors were told he waited at the house with the crossbow to kill his 25-year-old former partner, who had been working in a dog grooming pod in the garden, and her 28-year-old sister, Hannah Hunt, when she returned home from work.

She said that when asked who had been shot, Hannah Hunt said “my mum and my sister and me”.

Detective Constable Alex Leckie agreed with the prosecutor that Hannah Hunt then tried to “provide police with details of the address and what was going on inside the address”.

The defendant previously admitted three counts of murder, one of false imprisonment against Louise Hunt, and two counts of possession of offensive weapons – the crossbow and the knife.

Clifford, of Enfield, north London, denies a single charge of rape, against Louise Hunt.

Mr Hunt watched proceedings from the public gallery on Wednesday, and a woman left the public gallery in tears after the footage at the doorstep of the family home was played.

Jurors were earlier shown footage of Clifford at a garden centre in Enfield on the morning of the day of the murders.

Detective Constable Alex Leckie said Clifford was at the garden centre with his mother, father and niece.

She said Clifford received an incoming call, which went to voicemail, from a woman “the defendant was in another relationship with at that time”.

Jurors were also shown footage of Clifford at a gym on July 5.

Clifford, who is being tried in his absence, is alleged to have become “enraged” when Louise Hunt ended their 18-month relationship before he “carefully planned and executed” the murders.

The prosecutor asked forensic scientist Martin Whittaker if the findings of intimate samples taken from Louise Hunt after her death on July 9 last year could be explained by sexual intercourse taking place 16 days prior, on June 23.

Mr Whittaker said that in his opinion the “presence and quantity” of DNA in the intimate sample “cannot reasonably be explained by Kyle Clifford only having had” sex with Louise Hunt on June 23.

The scientist said that the findings “can be explained if when (Clifford) was in her company on the day of her death Kyle Clifford had … intercourse with Louise Hunt”.

Prosecutors allege Clifford raped Louise Hunt on the day of her death, on July 9.

Phil Bradley KC, for Clifford, said the defence case is that Clifford and Louise Hunt last had sexual intercourse on June 23.

The trial continues.