Fears lockdown led to rise in domestic abuse
5 years on since the murder of their mum and sister in Spalding, two brothers are urging people to spot the signs
Last updated 19th Jul 2021
As restrictions are eased it's feared lockdown has led to a rise in domestic abuse across Lincolnshire and Newark.
Today, 5 years since the murder of their mum and sister in Spalding, two brothers are urging people to spot the signs.
Lance Hart shot his wife, Claire, and 19-year-old daughter, Charlotte before taking his own life in 2016
"He was a man who was cold blooded about everything"
Luke never expected things to escalate the way they did.
"Our father left behind a murder note that wasn’t a man who had lost control of himself, this was a man who was justifying murdering his insubordinate family.
"This was a man who believed that us leaving him was a sufficient wrong that murdering us all wouldn’t even equal the harm that we had done him.
“What is our society doing that allows men like our father to believe that their justified to murder their families for trying to escape them?"
"One national media outlet used the word understandable referring to the murders"
Luke thinks the media plays a large part in this.
"You start to realise that this kind of male hurt seems to be worth more than female lives.
"Men's emotions seem to have more importance than the safety and freedom of women and children.
"It was incredible for Ryan and I to see that so clearly in front of our faces."
Ryan still remembers his family as they were 5 years ago.
"I still remember Mum and Charlotte as if Charlotte was 19 and Mum was 50, I still have their sort of image in my mind, I think that keeps us going.
"I think we’re both proud of what we’ve accomplished so far.
"It doesn’t get any easier at all."
What is Coercive Control?
Ryan compares it to a suffocating environment.
"It's day-to-day things that erode you down.
"They’re not big enough for you to be able to complain about. but they’re so persistent and so damaging that they just grind you down overtime with very severe consequences."
"In isolation it might just seem a bit annoying or a bit silly, but when you’re living with it day-to-day for your whole life, it destroys your life.
"It’s hard for people to understand how destructive it is when it might seem like small mundane things."
Luke agrees.
"People always expect you to be able to give one incident of significant magnitude that make people go 'ah'.
"Coercive control isn’t like one big event a week, it’s like a million pinpricks every day.
"The cumulative affect of that is absolutely devastating as you never have a chance to react, respond, to recover, it’s just like one thing after the other"
“You’d just hear him patrolling up and down the stairs and walking around on the landing"
Luke says, in hindsight, it was clear what he was planning.
"It’s pretty obvious now he spent those hours in the middle of the night constantly egging himself up to kill us all.
He was probably just moments away from grabbing a machete or a shotgun and storming into the bedrooms."
Ryan thinks they're both lucky to be alive.
"There are many scenarios where Mum or Charlotte, or me or Luke, one or more of us could have been killed.
"I aim to use my life in a really good way now.
"A way that Mum and Charlotte would have if they were still here."