The son of a murdered woman has described the moment his father tried to force him to help stage her death as a suicide – at just eight years old.
Brave Dale Barrett, now 23, has spoken for the first time about seeing his abusive father strangle Janine Mundy, 34.
Violent Anthony Wayne Mundy was given a life sentence for murder but will be considered for parole later this year.
And opening up for the first time about the horror he saw as a child Mr Barrett said he was still ‘haunted’ by witnessing the killing at their family home in Camborne, Cornwall.
He was just eight years old when he and his brother, 10, saw their father, then aged 39, strangling their mother after being woken by her screams on June 27, 2003.
Dale Barrett, 23, has spoken for the first time about seeing his abusive father Anthony Wayne Mundy strangle his mother Janine Mundy, 34 in 2003
After the killing, Mundy (pictured) dressed his wife and used a climbing rope to suspend her body over the stairwell of their family home in Camborne, Cornwall in 2003
After the killing, Mundy dressed his wife and used a climbing rope to suspend her body over the stairwell.
Speaking of the trauma for the first time, Mr Barrett told the BBC: ‘The picture I have got in my head is when I walked down the stairs and she was hung and she had all bruising (on her neck).
‘He asked us for help because he just wanted to stage it as a suicide, he asked us to help lift the body over the stairwell to hang her. We said no.
‘It happened in the night and he dressed her in her clothes and even asked us to help lift the body over the stairway to hang her.
‘He said to tell the police because I had rung the police. He said to tell them it was a suicide and that we had called him because we were scared and panicking.
‘But at that time I thought ‘he’s just killed someone, he might kill me or my brother.
‘I just literally pointed the finger at him and that was it. Within a matter of minutes really we’d lost both our parents.
‘We lost one and we now hate the other one, so for me he’s dead.’
Mr Barrett said he hated his father who had ‘destroyed my whole family’.
Dale was just eight years old when he and his brother, 10, saw their father, then aged 39, strangling their mother after being woken by her screams
He added: ‘Within a matter of minutes we lost both our parents so we went from quite a normal life to nothing.
Mundy had been arrested on suspicion of attempting to drown his wife in the bath just 16 days before he killed her.
Mrs Mundy was left so frightened she had the house locks changed and an alarm installed.
Mundy was released on police bail and then followed a step-by-step plan, breaking into the house, deactivating the alarm and killing Mrs Mundy.
Mr Barrett said he had a ‘normal’ childhood before the murder and had ‘never seen any abuse or any shouting’.
However, after the first attack he remembered being in a car with his mother who was wearing only her bra and pants and he could see she was ‘bruised and beaten’.
He was ‘shocked’ when she told him what had happened.
Following her death, Mrs Mundy’s parents received an apology from Devon and Cornwall Police who admitted more could have been done to protect her.
Her parents also helped to set up J9, a domestic abuse initiative aimed at helping and raising awareness of victims of abuse.
Mr Barrett described his mother as ‘a bit crazy, smiley, bubbly and really chatty’ and said there had been a lot of laughter in their lives.