'We're caught in a trap': Mick Philpott pictured singing Elvis and downing shots during karaoke pub session just days after killing six of his children in house blaze

Drunk and swaying in a T-shirt and trilby, Mick Philpott performs karaoke at a pub party just days after killing six of his children in a house fire.

Locals watched in disgust as he downed shots, embraced his wife Mairead and took centre stage to sing Elvis Presley’s hit Suspicious Minds.

The bizarre behaviour in the wake of the deaths prompted witnesses to call the police, who arrested the couple just nine hours later.
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Sickening behaviour: CCTV captures trilby-wearing Mick Philpott taking the microphone as locals look on in horror


Philpott and his six children who died. Not long after their deaths he went to a pub with his wife and enjoyed drinks and karaoke



Horrific reminder: Number 18 Victory Road in Allenton has been empty since the tragedy last May

Philpott, 56, was last week jailed for life for killing children Duwayne, 13, Jade, ten, John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six, and Jayden, five. Mairead and best friend Paul Mosley were also jailed for 17 years for manslaughter.

They set the fire in a botched attempt to frame Philpott’s former live-in lover Lisa Willis, who had moved out of their family home earlier in the year with her five children, taking with her the £1,000 a month they were worth in benefit payments.




The scorched home where the Philpott children died will now be bulldozed in an attempt to help the community move on from the tragedy.

On May 26 last year, just 15 days after the fatal fire, Philpott and his wife went to the Navigation Inn in Derby, located across the road from the conference centre where they sobbed for the cameras days earlier at a now infamous press conference.








The Navigation Inn in Derby, where Philpott sang Elvis classics 'Suspicious Minds' and 'My Boy'



Extended family: Mick Philpott, wife Mairead, his mother Peggy and sons Jesse and (far right) John, who died in the fire



Killer: Mick Philpott and his wife Mairead speak at a press conference after the fatal house fire he started in his home. Detectives became suspicious because of his unusual behaviour in the days after the deaths

They arrived at about 4.30pm and were seen drinking vodka, gin, rum and Jack Daniel’s before Philpott, clearly revelling in the attention, got up to the microphone.


He sang the 1975 Elvis classic Suspicious Minds, with the line: ‘We’re caught in a trap, I can’t walk out, because I love you too much baby.’

CCTV footage shows his wife, also in a trilby, giggling and sitting on his lap before joining him for a duet of Elvis’s My Boy, a song they would sing to their children at night.

A number of people who had seen the performance were so stunned they called the police to report them acting suspiciously. Staff at the pub then handed the CCTV footage to officers.




LIFE imprisonment. See Mick Philpott's television appearances




Gutted: The family home in Victory Road, Derby, where the killer blaze happened. The childrens' grandmother Peggy lives less than half a mile away

Jeanette Doherty, landlady of the Navigation Inn, said she was appalled when Philpott started singing. ‘The two of them were up dancing and having a good time,’ she said.


‘She was round the pool table grinding up against young lads.

‘It was bizarre behaviour. At first people were just shocked that Mick and Mairead were even there. You don’t expect to see a couple whose six children have just died to be out partying.


'They were laughing and joking. I don’t know how they could live day to day knowing they had caused their six kids to die, let alone go out enjoying themselves.’

Her husband Russell added: ‘People just couldn’t believe it. It made them think something strange was going on and there was something not quite right.’




Young lives destroyed: (top row) Duwayne, 13, Jade Philpott, 10, and her brothers John, nine, (lower row) Jack, eight, Jayden, five and Jesse, six



Killed by their own parents: Six wooden crosses mark the graves of the Philpott children



Grief: Six tiny coffins are carried into St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Derby as a community mourns for the dead children

The Philpotts were already under suspicion by that point. They had been acting increasingly erratically, ordering that thousands of pounds donated for the children’s funeral be given to them as an Argos voucher.

Philpott had also demanded friends collect teddy bears from outside their home to auction off for cash.


The footage has emerged amid news that the Philpott’s house will be bulldozed. The house has stood empty and boarded up since the fire.

Local council leader Paul Bayliss said: ‘Who would want to live in a house where six children have died and why would you want to live next door to where six children have died?’