Carl Mills: Jealous boyfriend jailed for at least 30 years for killing three generations of family in house blaze

The homeless alcoholic bombarded his partner with threatening texts and warned: "I will burn your house down"

Guilty: Carl Mills

PA

A jealous alcoholic who torched his teenage girlfriend's home, burning a family of three to death, has been found guilty of triple murder.
Carl Mills, 28, bombarded his partner with threatening texts and, convinced she was inside with another man, warned: "I will burn your house down."
Within hours grandmother Kim Buckley, 46, her daughter Kayleigh, 17, and granddaughter Kimberley, six months, died in the inferno.
The blaze ripped through the family home in Coed Eva, Cwmbran, south Wales, in the early hours of September 18, last year.
Thick smoke and flames quickly spread from the main porch to the stairs, cutting off all escape routes.
Frantic neighbours watched in despair as teenager Kayleigh was seen trapped at an upstairs window screaming for help.

Murdered: Kim Buckley, daughter Kayleigh, 17, and granddaughter Kimberley, six months

Baby Kimberley, born 13 weeks premature, was at home in the property for the first time after being discharged from hospital that day.
Homeless Mills, the baby's father, was living in a tent in the front garden but had been banned from seeing Kimberley unsupervised.
Mills stood unemotional and apparently uninterested as the jury at Newport Crown Court delivered three unanimous guilty verdicts.
Trial judge Mr Justice Wyn Williams then imposed a 30-year minimum tariff on Mills, adding: "There is no saying whether you will ever be released."
Mills sat leaning on his arm as the judge made his comments and did not bother to look up.
Family and friends then burst into applause as Mills was taken away.
The judge commended them for the "great dignity" with which they had behaved throughout.

Unmoved: Carl Mills in court

Elizabeth Cook

The judge told Mills that life sentences were mandatory for each guilty verdict, adding: "This is not an occasion for prolonged sentencing remarks."

He told him that he had set fire to the three bedroom home in Tillsland, Coed Eva, on September 18, "knowing that Kim, Kayleigh and baby Kimberley would be upstairs.
"You must have known that once the fire had taken hold that there would be virtually no chance of escape.
The judge spoke of previous tragedies the family had suffered - the death of two of mother Kim's four children early in life.

"Your crimes have devastated this family and you have shown no remorse in my opinion," he told Mills.
He added that Mills had spent his time trying to avoid responsibility for what he had done.
"Conducting your defence in such a way as to suggest that Kayleigh had started the fire herself (with a discarded cigarette) - that in my judgment was despicable."
The remains of the badly fire-damaged family home in Cwmbran has since been demolished.