Killamarsh murders: Probation errors justified, inquest told

Terri Harris (bottom left) and her children John Bennett (top left) and Lacey Bennett (bottom right) were found dead along with Lacey's friend Connie Gent (top right)

A probation officer was overseeing 350 cases when she handed the supervision of a man who went on to kill to a junior colleague, a coroner has heard.

Damien Bendall murdered his partner, her two children and another child at a home in Derbyshire in 2021.

Senior probation officer Tracey Hume told Chesterfield Coroners' Court errors made in managing Bendall were "very justified" given her workload.

Bendall is serving a whole-life sentence for the murders.

Police attended a property in Killamarsh on 19 September 2021 where they found the bodies of Terri Harris, 35, her son John Bennett, 13, daughter Lacey Bennett, 11, and Lacey's 11-year-old friend Connie Gent.

They had all been killed with a claw hammer.

Weeks before the killings, Bendall had been given a suspended sentence for an unrelated arson offence, after being incorrectly categorised as posing a low risk to partners and children and a medium risk to the public.

Ms Hume said Bendall's case was one of 350 she had to oversee when she allocated it to a probation officer with just six months of experience.

The junior officer could only deal with low-risk offenders, the court heard.

Damien Bendall admitted four murders and the rape of 11-year-old Lacey

Ms Hume told the court that allocating Bendall's supervision to her junior colleague was not a poor decision based on what she knew at the time.

However, she said the decision not to reallocate it when clear evidence later emerged that Bendall posed a high risk was an "error of judgment".

"I can say it was an error of judgment under the circumstances I was working under," she said.

"I was trying to juggle everything.

"While I'm not trying to be defensive and say it was not egregious, what I'm trying to say is I cannot manage or micromanage 350 cases.

"So while yes, I appreciate there were errors, I'm just saying there were very, very justified reasons as to why I did not see all of these at the time."

The court had previously heard from probation staff dealing with Bendall's case who said their workload was "overwhelming".

Police found Terri Harris and the three children dead at the house in Chandos Crescent

A subsequent report into Bendall's case by the Inspectorate of Probation singled out Ms Hume's allocation decision as "another example of poor allocation practice to add to the other serious issues".

But Ms Hume told the inspectorate that staff were put under "impossible pressure" and told the inquests that high workloads prevented her from fulfilling the oversight requirements of her role.

"In the circumstances that we were under, in the type of absolute pressure on everybody, I did every single thing that I could for this case and every single one of my cases," she said.

"It was not possible to do absolutely everything on the list of things we needed to do."

The inquests continue.