Double murderer ‘played the system’, families say

The man Chloe Bashford had affectionately called her “stepdad” went on to kill her and her husband Josh in their home after helping with the morning school run. Having endured a wait of more than two years for the case go to trial, their families have now seen Derek Martin found guilty of murder despite his attempts to claim diminished responsibility.

“It’s been hell,” said Billy Bashford after his brother’s killer was finally convicted on Friday. “It’s been a weight on my shoulders for so long.

“It’s affected relationships in my life, my work life, my family life.”

Derek Martin’s murder trial had been rescheduled five times before it began in early October, meaning more than two years had passed since he murdered Chloe and Josh Bashford at their home in Newhaven, East Sussex.

Josh’s mother, Sharon Bashford, said: “We have had to wait from the time of the killings just to try and get a bit of normality in our lives, to stop the flow of tears and all this anguish and upset.”

She described the process of repeatedly preparing for the trial to begin as “unbearable”.

“You build yourself up for it and then suddenly at the very last minute, things change,” she said.

“Things are cancelled because the defence is continually asking for another psychiatric report, because Derek Martin has changed his plan, his evidence of what he actually did at the crime scene.

“To me it’s because of Derek and it’s because he has control. He is controlling the trial. He is controlling us. He is controlling everybody. And he’s laughing.”

Her anger is shared by Chloe’s mother, Elaine Sturges, who was once married to Martin but split up with him many years ago.

She said her ex-husband had been “lying” to the court when his legal team argued he could not be held fully responsible for his actions due to his history of depression.

It was on that basis that he had admitted manslaughter but denied murder.

Diminished responsibility is a partial defence to murder.

If a defendant successfully proves they were experiencing an abnormality of mental functioning, they will be convicted of manslaughter instead and receive a less severe sentence.

Ms Sturges said: “He always told us ‘I know how to play the system. I know exactly what to say. I know exactly how to act’.

“And this one… it’s caught him out. It wasn’t diminished responsibility and it wasn’t manslaughter. It was murder, cold-blooded murder because he didn’t get his own way. Spoilt brat.”

Chloe’s father, Jason Godden, added: “He’s playing the system just to try and get a lower sentence.”

Jurors heard how Martin, 67, had formed a close friendship with 30-year-old Chloe in recent years.

He visited the home she shared with Josh almost daily and helped her with the school run, cleaning and decorating.

On 9 June, 2023, Martin dropped the youngest children at school and nursery before taking Chloe out for breakfast.

The court heard how the pair got into an argument about the repayment of money he had previously lent her when they returned to her home.

It was there that Martin attacked her with a hammer, stabbed her and killed her.

A few minutes later, he also stabbed and strangled 33-year-old Josh to death when he arrived back from work.

Josh and Chloe’s relatives said they were “brilliant” parents who “would do anything” for their children, who were aged between four and 15 at the time of the deaths.

After the killings, Martin, from Brighton, attempted to hide what he had done from the children.

He cleared up the house, took them for drinks after school and then drove them to McDonalds for dinner.

Andrew Bashford, Josh’s dad, said: “He took the door handles off the doors where the bodies were. He removed the Ring doorbell from the front door.

“He drove their car to a road in Newhaven. Then he went and picked the children up, texted the older ones to say don’t come home, meet me at Costa.

“It’s amazing how someone that can plead diminished responsibility then can think as clearly as that.”

Sharon Bashford added: “The fact that he changed his clothes, the fact that he hid their phones, everything, it was all structured.”

Martin dropped the children outside Elaine’s house before going to hand himself in at Brighton Police Station.

DCI Kimball Edey, the senior investigating officer from Surrey and Sussex Police’s Major Crime Team, said he believed Martin “would have had to have sufficient thought” to carry out the two attacks.

He said while there was no dispute over whether Martin should be prosecuted for the killings, the debate between murder and manslaughter had been complex.

Five different psychiatrists gave evidence at the trial.

DCI Edey said: “This has been described by a forensic consultant psychiatrist who has seen Derek Martin as the most complicated case that he has ever come across and a case that’s caused him a great deal of thought and consideration in reaching the conclusion that he reached.”

Martin had attempted to explain his violent attack as the result of an argument about the money that Chloe owed to him, telling police he felt “used” and he “lost it”.

DCI Edey added: “My own impression of Chloe is that she was somebody trying to do her absolute best for her children. She was accepting help from somebody who was effectively putting himself into a paternal type relationship with her and he was offering help.

“The relationship was very much two-way. There’s lots of evidence for that. Chloe often thanked Derek for his help. She took him out for meals.

“She cooked food for him and offered him friendship and companionship.

“Whatever caused Derek Martin to act in the way that he did on the 9 June 2023, my own view is that it was not about money.”

Martin will be sentenced on 6 November.