Grave - Celeste Bates (1966 to 8th September 1998)

Murdering your ex-partner is evil enough but murdering their two children is beyond evil. Here I am the quiet corner of a village cemetery where a mum and her two children lie after being murdered in 1998. I’m surprised this triple murderer has remained under the national radar of grisly crimes.

Peter Hall - a heating engineer with no history of violence - murdered Celeste Bates and her children in a blind, jealous rage. They had were a couple but he believed Celeste was about to return to her former husband. Celeste was 32 and her children Daniel was and Milo only 17 months. Hall travelled to her home on Blackburn Road in Egerton and stabbed her 10 times using a 15cm serrated hunting knife. He then bludgeoned her around the head with an ornamental iron and strangled her. He lay with her lifeless body for two hours.

Later he returned home, had a shower, changed his clothes then returned to Celeste's house in a taxi. Here he picked up her car and collected baby Milo from nursery, led him upstairs to the child's bedroom and battered him to death with a pick axe handle. He then went to collect Daniel from the childminder, led him to the bedroom and killed him using the same pick axe handle (he even killed Daniel's pet guinea pig.) An autopsy showed both children had been stuck on the head at least six times.

Celeste’s sister called the police when she could not contact her. They used a ladder to climb through an open upstairs bedroom. A nationwide manhunt began by police offers sickened by the murdered scene. A helicopter was sent up to scout the area and Hall was publically named as the man they were seeking. They soon found him - he'd driven away in Celeste's car and smashed into a lamp post. On his arrest he told police officers: "I think you are looking for me. I have really done it this time. I should not have done it." He later claimed he’d crashed the car to kill himself.

He had left £470 on a kitchen table which he asked a friend to use to care for his two Rottweilers. He later told police that he had intended to take his own life following the murders by swallowing tablets. In court as he was given three life sentences but showed no emotion. In mitigation Peter Birkett QC told the court that Hall was "racked with remorse and that will remain with him for the rest of his life". Perhaps these words carried weight as in December 1999 Hall hung himself in prison cell using bed-sheets and workmen’s overalls attached to the bars.

The graves lies in the fair end of the churchyard in Egerton near Bolton. I was glad to see three fresh flower bouquets testified to recent visitors. Were they placed there by family, friends or locals from Egerton village? Or perhaps from police called to the house that day. The crime scene was so grim attending police had to seek therapy and are still haunted by the scenes sent to their brains that day. What a smorgasbord of evil and misery lies here. I did a salute and left.

Where they were murdered...