THE MOTHER of two young boys, murdered by their father in a house fire, has told for the first time how she was forced to pay for HIS funeral.
Jack and Paul Sykes, 12 and nine, died after their father Darren locked them in the attic of the former family home on Tennyson Close, Penistone, before setting fire to pools of petrol.
Their mum Claire Throssell says she has kept silent for too long about having to pay for Sykes’s funeral from money raised through the sale of the house last September - which was put on the market after being repaired by the kind-hearted Penistone community.
Claire, 45, has also never seen the several thousand pounds which Sykes transferred to his girlfriend just hours before starting the fire in October 2014.
She knows nothing will bring her boys back, but says it’s the principle that matters.
Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle
