EastEnders star and two children beaten and stabbed to death after she was going to leave partner
A cannabis dealer bludgeoned and stabbed former EastEnders actor Sian Blake before killing their sons in their sleep. Arthur Simpson-Kent, 57, pleaded guilty to the horrific killings of his partner Sian, 43, and their children, Zachary, eight, and Amon, four, at their family home in Erith, south-east London.
In December 2015, he savagely attacked Sian and the boys with a small axe before stabbing them, just days after Sian – who starred in 56 episodes of EastEnders as singer Frankie Pierre in the mid-1990s – discovered she was terminally ill and planned to leave their "unhealthy" relationship to live with her mother. After the brutal assault, Arthur concealed the bodies in plastic and buried them in the garden before escaping to Ghana.
Upon discovering Sian's plans, Simpson-Kent launched his violent attack on his family "with heavy, deliberate, repeated blows". He then tried to conceal his heinous crimes by wrapping each of his victims in plastic and sheeting and burying them in the garden. He placed a concrete slab on each and covered them with soil before hurriedly attempting to repaint their bungalow.
READ MORE:EastEnders fans gobsmacked as they realise teen Avani star Aaliyah James' real age
READ MORE:MAFS UK viewers fume over 'full-on' scene with groom Nathan and mum-in-law
Arthur then called a charity to take away all clothes and possessions belonging to Blake and the two boys, and burned some items in the garden. Police went to the bungalow on 16 December, but Arthur was uncooperative, eventually letting officers into the house and telling them that Blake had been fed up with the tension between him and her family and had taken the children to Cambridge. Blood stains were later discovered in the house, before the bodies were unearthed outside.
In a chilling strategy "to deliberately mislead", Arthur penned texts to Sian's relatives to convince them she planned to vanish for months, deliberately avoiding contact. In the days after her death, haunting messages were sent from her phone to her family, saying she had gone away.
One sent to her sister Ava chillingly stated: "I’m taking time to myself and my children without constant opinions from family and friends […] nobody knows what I am going through and regardless of all the comments, no one can cure me.
"I have had enough of appeasing everyone. We are away and I will not be calling or speaking to anyone for a few months."
As the authorities pieced together the situation into a missing person case for Sian and her kids, Arthur booked a flight from Glasgow to Accra, via Amsterdam. In a message to a friend, he said: "I can’t go into details about what I have done but I only have two choices. Go to Ghana one way or die."
In the town of Busua, Ghana, Arthur confessed to a local man that he "had killed his girlfriend first and then he had killed the two children afterwards," according to court reports. He was seen "really partying" on New Year’s Eve and was spotted escorting two young women to a cafe the next morning.
Just two days later, he was caught by local police. In a desperation, he claimed he had killed his partner and children as part of an agreed murder-suicide pact due to Sian’s terminal illness and his strained relationship with her family. However, the prosecution argued there was no evidence to support these claims.
Malcolm McHaffie, the deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS London, stated that Arthur had committed "brutal, cold-blooded murders of his partner and children, whose trust he grossly breached". He added that the defendant had denied Blake’s family precious time with their much-loved sister, daughter, mother and also wiped out "a future generation of the family".
Arthur had gone to extreme lengths to hide his crimes, misleading friends, family and the police about his actions, McHaffie further added. "Even more callously, he suggested that Sian and he had entered into a pact to end all of their lives because of her condition. This was not true. In fact, Sian had been making inquiries about schools for the children and had been considering moving to live with her family without him."
In October 2016, he was handed a whole-life sentence. In a poignant statement read outside the Old Bailey, Sian’s family labelled Arthur a "monster" for attacking their loved ones in what should have been their sanctuary. "Arthur has robbed us of our dreams and aspirations, everything we wished for Sian and our precious boys," they said. "He stood in the dock with a smirk on his face and showed no remorse."
