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Judge, jury & hitman

My Chris had been freed from jail... but not his demons


Published by: Nicola Fifeld and Lorna Jeffries
Published on: 25 October 2012

The cornflakes fell out of my mouth as I read the headline in the local paper: Hunnisett cleared of murder. ‘They're talking about Chris!' I gasped, showing my stepdad Darren, 42.
‘What? The one you went to school with?' he said, reading the page over my shoulder. I nodded.
Chris Hunnisett was my mate Vicky's brother and had always been the school oddball.
Three years older, he was shy, quiet and never seemed to have any friends. He'd left home aged just 15. But our home town of Hastings was rocked two years later when he was jailed for killing a local man after a row.
‘Your Chris killed someone?' I spluttered, horrified, when Vicky told me. ‘It's awful,' she croaked. The whole school was abuzz.
‘He was a church altar boy, you know,' one friend chipped
in. ‘He looked like he wouldn't hurt a fly...'
But, nine years on, the newspaper reports said Chris, now 26, had been freed from prison after being found not guilty at a retrial.
It was revealed that the man he'd attacked had been sexually abusing him as a teenager and he'd only lashed out to protect himself, I read aloud.
I remembered the 6ft 3ins lanky schoolboy Chris used to be, with sad, brooding eyes.
‘Hiya, Lucy,' he'd mumble, as we passed in the school corridor. 
Did the abuse explain why he'd always been such a loner?
‘I guess we never know what's going on behind closed doors,' I mumbled to Darren, clearing away the breakfast plates.
Then, two weeks later, I was stunned when I got a ‘friend request' from Chris on Facebook. Without even thinking, I accepted it.
I used to be so close to Vicky and had seen the tears she'd shed for Chris when he was jailed for the murder of Rev Ronald Glazebrook. Now, at last, they knew why he'd committed such a terrible act.
It can't be easy starting your life again with everyone whispering and pointing,
I thought. And then a message popped up. From Chris.  
Hi, how are you? Would be lovely to meet for a coffee, he wrote. Anxiety rumbled in my belly, but I quashed my doubts. Chris wouldn't have many friends - and it seemed he'd been a victim, too. I'm free tomorrow, I messaged back. 
‘Everybody deserves a second chance,' I said to Darren the next day as I pulled on my jacket to go and meet Chris.
‘Just be careful,' he sighed.
My heart thudded as I met Chris outside the local station. He still had the same sad eyes. ‘Thanks for meeting me,' he mumbled. ‘Not everyone would.'
‘Well, I'm not everyone,' I smiled, before giggling nervously and saying, ‘You look a lot better than you did at school!'
‘I just want a fresh start,' Chris said wistfully as we walked along the seafront. ‘How have the years treated you?'
Now it was my turn to look sad. ‘I haven't had much luck with blokes,' I blurted.
It might've been nerves or just something about him, but soon I was telling Chris all about my relationship with Richard, which had quickly turned violent.
‘It was two years before I found the strength to leave him,' I admitted, as we sat on a bench. ‘But I was so depressed I had to give up my job as a carer to the elderly.' 
‘I'd never lay a hand on a woman,' he gasped. It was ironic coming from a bloke who'd done time for killing someone. But he seemed so gentle and earnest, I actually felt safe with him.
We talked for three hours before I agreed to meet him again the following day.
He showered me with compliments and even turned up with a big bag of sweet chilli crisps one morning because he'd overheard me say they were my favourite. Slowly, I could feel myself falling for him.
‘Does it bother you that I've been in prison?' he asked me one day as we strolled arm in arm through the park.
But I was already determined to help him rebuild his life.
‘It's in the past,'
I whispered. ‘But I'd never want you to put me through something like that again.' He assured me he wouldn't.
We seemed to have a great understanding and soon our relationship deepened. But, whenever we tried to make love, Chris would grow distant.
‘I'm sorry,' he said, sadly, one night in bed.
‘I just can't forget what he did.' Then it all came out about Rev Glazebrook, 81. How, after Chris left home, he'd been taken in by the vicar of the church where he'd been an altar boy. Chris claimed Glazebrook had sexually abused him.
‘I thought he wanted to help me but he just used me for his sick little games,' he said.
‘He was a paedophile and all paedophiles should be punished...'
I felt pity but didn't like him speaking like that. ‘You've got to put it behind you,' I urged.
My mum Michelle, 39, was willing to give Chris a chance though and four months later, we invited her and her partner Alan, 41, out for dinner with us.
As everyone tucked in, I popped to the loo. But when I came back, Chris looked nervous.
‘Will you marry me?' he suddenly asked, slipping a
white gold ring on my finger.
‘Yes!' I giggled, elated when Mum told me he'd asked her permission first. I didn't care about his past. All that mattered was our future.
I became a mad bridezilla, booking Hastings registrar office for nine months' time.
‘How about a honeymoon in Alicante?' I grinned at Chris as we looked at holiday brochures.
‘Whatever will make you happy,' he said.
Mum even gave me the wedding dress she married my dad in for our big day. Her ivory gown dotted with pearls took pride of place in my wardrobe.
I was holding it up against me a week later when my mobile beeped with a text from Chris. 
Someone's offered me some money to kill paedophiles, he wrote. What do you think?
I couldn't believe it. Was this some sort of sick joke? ‘I told you if you ever got into trouble again, we're over,' I replied, shocked.
Chris still lived at his mum's but over those next few days, he went silent then bombarded me with texts. We're meant to be getting married, let's sort this out, he wrote.
When you've decided what you're going to do, let me know,
I replied. I hoped he'd come to his senses.
A week later, he finally phoned. ‘Ready to make up?'
I asked. But there was silence for a few seconds.
‘I've just killed someone,' he blurted. Nausea bubbled in my throat as I prayed it wasn't true. But the dazed, frightened tone of his voice told me it was.
‘Please come and meet me,' he begged. ‘I need to talk.'
I had to see him, try and understand what the hell was going on. I was worried about him, too.
Chris had called Vicky, too, and she was with him now.
I was so nervous but he seemed as calm as anything.
As we walked along the seafront - where I'd walked with him the first day we met again - he confessed to killing a local man called Pete.
‘I just wanted to make him admit he was a paedophile,' he insisted. His eyes had that ‘lost boy' look again. But I wasn't falling for his sick excuses.
I now realised what he was - a cold-blooded murderer.
I was scared and sickened, but when he suggested we did a runner, my anger bubbled over.
‘You can either let us take you to the police station or do a runner yourself,'
I snarled, barely able to look at him. ‘But either way, I'm going straight to the police.' 
‘If that's what you want,' he mumbled, a dazed look in his eyes.
In eerie silence, Vicky drove us to Hastings police station.
‘I love you,' Chris whispered as he climbed out of the car. But I had nothing left to say to him as he handed himself in. 
I gave a statement and two officers explained that Chris had admitting to killing Peter Bick, 57, a supermarket worker.
‘We've found the body,' one confirmed. ‘I'm sorry.'
My heart went out to the family of Chris's latest victim.
‘They've lost more than I have,' I said.
I couldn't sleep. In my head I'd see Chris's hands caressing my body one moment, and dripping in blood the next.
A few days later a letter arrived at my house from HMP Belmarsh, the prison where Chris was being held.
Lucy, I do not care what other people think of me but I do care what you think, he wrote.
I never planned to hurt him... I just wanted him to admit what he was... I wanted to stop some really nasty people hurting kids...
 With the excuses came self-pity. I just wish I did not have to sacrifice everything. My freedom, life, you, he insisted.
But any last drop of love I had left for him died. I couldn't love a killer.
He bombarded me with letters after that, sometimes two, three times a day. Let's get married in prison, he even suggested in one. But I wanted to erase every last trace of him. His green hoody, the one I'd slept snugly in just weeks before, every single picture of us together... I binned the lot, selling my engagement ring for a token £10. I'd narrowly escaped marrying a maniac.
I didn't think I'd ever trust any man again. But eight months later, I cracked and went on a date with Davyd, 20, who I knew through a mutual friend. He'd heard all about what had happened with Chris.
‘You don't have to talk about it,' he hushed after a few dates. ‘But if you want to, I'm here.'
And I needed that support in April this year when Chris pleaded not guilty to the murder of Peter Bick at Lewes Crown Court.
Instead, he admitted manslaughter by way of diminished responsibility.
The court heard that while in prison, Chris had dreamt up a one-man mission to rid the world of paedophiles.
After being freed he made a ‘hit-list' of men he planned to kill but his belief that they were child molesters was based on nothing more than rumours and tittle-tattle.
All the time he'd been wooing me, he'd set up false internet accounts, often posing as a girl, as a 'honeytrap' for his targets.
Peter Bick was at the top of his list but there wasn't a shred of evidence to suggest he was a paedophile. Bick, who was gay, used dating websites to meet young men for consensual sex, and Chris had lured him in.
They'd had sex at Bick's flat before Chris brutally smashed his head with a hammer five times and strangled him with a shoelace. Afterwards, he'd cleaned the body before placing it back under the bed covers.
I vomited when I heard the grisly details. Our life together had been nothing but a lie.
When it was my turn to give evidence, Chris stared at me from the dock.
‘I love you,' he mouthed. It made my flesh crawl.
Voice faltering, I told the jury how we'd argued days before the killing, then how Chris had confessed to everything.
In his defence, he claimed he'd lost control when Bick ‘admitted' to being a paedophile. But the prosecution said it was ‘the false claim of a cold-blooded killer' confused about his sexuality.
The jury found Chris guilty of murder and he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 18 years. Sentencing him, Mr Justice Saunders said Chris was a ‘self-appointed judge, jury and executioner,' who could kill again and might never be released.
Five months on from the trial, I'm enjoying a new life with Davyd and we're expecting our first baby in seven weeks.
I thought Chris deserved a second chance. But he was just a killer who only wanted to protect his secret sordid life.

Main picture: Lucy and Davyd 
Lucy Anderson, 25, Hastings, East Sussex