Axe murderer slayed EastEnders star and sons and buried bodies in shallow grave

The shocking case of a former successful soap star’s horrific murder made headlines when her partner was found guilty of bludgeoning her and their two sons to death and burying their bodies in the garden of their home, before fleeing the country.

Sian Blake was a successful actress, with one of her most notable roles as singer Frankie Pierre in the BBC's EastEnders from 1996 to 1997. Her character pursued married cafe worker Alan Jackson. She also had parts in Casualty, The Bill, Skins and Doctors as well as appearing on stage and doing voiceover work. When she retired from acting she became a sign-language teacher and interpreter.

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Behind the scenes, life at home for Sian was troubled. She was in a relationship with former hairdresser and part-time drug dealer Arthur Simpson-Kent and the pair had two sons together, Zachary, eight, and Amon, four. According to reports she was unhappy and wanted to leave her partner.

In 2013 she started to show signs of a neurological illness and on 11 December 2015 she was diagnosed with terminal motor neurone disease. Her condition had left her unable to walk unaided and had weakened her arms. Sian, 43, visited her mum, who she was very close to, shortly after to discuss the possibility of the family moving in with her.

Just days later she was reported missing when the children had also failed to turn up to school.

Officers visited their dilapidated home in Erith, southeast London and were met by 49 year old Arthur who told them his partner was "fed up" with her family and had "gone to Cambridge to see a friend". Minutes after police left he fled the house, dumping Sian's car in east London and going to a friend who thought he was in trouble because of his cannabis dealing.

He then tried to get a flight out of the UK that night but when he failed to do so, his friend told him he couldn’t go back to his house. So he sent another pal a chilling message, which read: "I need your help tonight. I can’t go into details about what I have done but I only have 2 choices. Go to Ghana one way or die."

Using his friend’s card he got a coach from London to Glasgow then a flight to his native Ghana via Amsterdam, arriving in Accra on December 19.

Police returned to the family’s home hours after their first visit to find Arthur gone and the house deserted. When they examined inside in more detail they found attempts had been made to cover over blood splatters on the wall with paint.

Texts had also been sent from Sian's phone to relatives, including her sister Ava, saying that she had "gone away for a few weeks" and was "taking time to myself and my children". They were sent from the house.

After Sian’s car was found in Bethnal Green an excavation of the garden at the home took place where the bodies of Sian and her two sons, who were aged just eight and four, were found in a shallow grave.

Former Met Police detective Steve Keogh featured in TRUE CRIME’s documentary series Secrets of a Murder Detective where viewers were taken behind the scenes of a murder investigation. He worked on some of the country’s biggest crimes but says when Sian and her boys were discovered, it was one of the hardest moments in his long career.

"I was in the office, and when it fed back from the scene that actually no, it’s a grave and there’s three of them in there, that was a real low point in my career," he told Metro last year.

"It was just a very sad moment for the whole team. The way Sian and her boys were murdered at the hands of their father is probably the one murder investigation I’ve had that has affected me the most and I will always carry with me."

Post mortem examinations revealed all three victims had suffered serious head injuries and were then stabbed in the neck. "The fact Zachary had defensive injuries gives me the chills," Steve said. "The fact he wasn’t asleep, and he saw it coming - that’s one of the things that will always sit with me."

Determined to make the killer of the innocent boys and their loving mother face justice for his heinous crimes, Steve and his team set about finding Simpson-Kent. He was tracked down to Ghana and a few days later, on January 9, local police there arrested him on a beach where he was found sipping from a coconut. He told police there was an agreement with Sian to kill her and the kids as she had "no meaningful life" left.

Simpson-Kent pleaded guilty to all three murders and was handed a rare whole life sentence, meaning he will die behind bars. The court heard how he used a small axe to hit Sian and their two young children on the head and knock them unconscious. All three were then stabbed in the neck or throat before he wrapped their bodies in plastic and buried them in shallow graves in the garden.

The court heard that Simpson-Kent told psychiatrist Dr Philip Joseph, "something just snapped in me". He added: "I felt as if I had just been pushed off a diving board and was falling. I grabbed hold of a small axe that was kept on a ledge in the kitchen. Sian's head was bent low down and she was bent over looking at the floor.

"I approached her from the side and hit her at the back of the head as hard as I could and she fell unconscious at the first blow. After that I hit her repeatedly on the head. My mind was blank and I was focusing on doing and not thinking. It was like I was there but not there."

There were tears in the public gallery as Mr Justice Singh handed down the whole life sentence and told the court: "The evidence is inconsistent with any thoughts Sian Blake wished to have her life terminated or agreed for Arthur Simpson-Kent to take her life. The manner in which the defendant killed his victims is truly horrific.

"In my judgment this was indeed a case where each murder involved a substantial degree of premeditation or planning. At the very least that must be true of the murder of each of the two little boys individually, and in turn after the defendant had already killed Sian Blake.

He continued: "Each of the victims was particularly vulnerable because of age or disability. There was an abuse of position of trust. There was concealment of the bodies. He made efforts to remove evidence of his crimes at the house, including repainting. He sought to lay a false trail by using Sian Blake's mobile phone. He lied to the police and others about the whereabouts of the family."

Mr Justice Singh said he rejected Simpson-Kent's claim that he was depressed and planned to also kill himself, before bottling it. Steve agreed saying there was no mercy in the way he killed Sian. "Looking back, we don’t know 100 per cent why he did it. The injuries were horrific. It was cruel. It was wicked. It was barbaric.

"How can you get yourself in the mind of someone as evil as that? A long time ago I realised you can’t put yourself in the mind of these people because they don’t think or act in the way that we would."