A father murdered his son and repeatedly stabbed his daughter to punish their mother for having an affair, a court was told yesterday.

Christopher Hawkins, 47, was said to have chosen the day after his wedding anniversary to gain revenge on his estranged wife, Valerie, who had left their violent marriage after starting a relationship with another man.

Leeds Crown Court was told that the sheet-metal worker fatally stabbed his son, Ryan, 4, and tried to murder his daughter, Donna, 14, who survived the prolonged attack despite suffering multiple knife injuries.

When police found Mr Hawkins in a church, he allegedly confessed: “I stabbed my son and daughter because my wife is having an affair and I took it out on them. I will admit it. Are they OK?”

The court was told that after Mr Hawkins, a heavy drinker, married his wife in 1990 the couple ran a pub in Slaithwaite, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Mrs Hawkins later went to work at a taxi firm where she met Lee Tinker, a taxi driver, and began a relationship with him.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Simon Myerson, QC, said that in May last year Mrs Hawkins told her husband that she no longed loved him and was leaving him. He later discovered about the affair and was “extremely unhappy”, said Mr Myerson.

In September Donna went to her father’s house to collect Ryan, who had been staying with Mr Hawkins for the weekend. After finding that her brother had wet himself she changed his trousers then told him to put on his coat. As they tried to leave she realised that their father had locked the front door.

Mr Myerson said that Mr Hawkins apologised to his daughter before lifting a knife and beginning to stab her. He paused to allow her to answer her mobile phone – the caller was Mr Tinker – before resuming his attack.

Her father is then said to have told Donna: “I’ve got to kill Ryan now.” The blood-soaked girl managed to unlock the front door and escaped from the house before collapsing in the street. She had been stabbed at least 13 times. The knife had punctured her mouth, liver, chest, abdomen, arm and thigh. Her life was saved by surgeons, but her brother’s body was later found on a sofa inside the house.

The boy, who had celebrated his birthday a week earlier, had nine knife wounds. Two of the thrusts had punctured his heart.

“It is the prosecution’s case that, as she’s escaping into the street, the defendant is in the process of killing her brother, his son,” said Mr Myerson.

After the stabbings, Mr Hawkins is said to have gone to a pub where, with blood all over his forearms, he bought a pint of beer and told another customer what he had done. He was arrested after seeking refuge in a local church.

The jury was told that Mr Hawkins, who denies murder and attempted murder, initially confessed to the stabbings and vowed to “commit suicide for what I have done”. Mr Myerson said that Mr Hawkins had later claimed that he was hearing voices at the time of the attacks and had no memory of what happened.

This was “simply dishonest”, said the prosecutor. “When he stabbed his children, he knew what he was doing. He knew it was wrong, he meant to do it and he could have stopped himself from doing it.”

The case continues.

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