The mother who killed the elderly man who sexually abused her children

The mother who killed the elderly man who sexually abused her children

 Eight years ago, Sarah Sands stabbed a convicted child molester to death.

One night in the autumn of 2014, a woman armed with a knife and wearing a hood left a small flat in East London and walked through nearby flats to an elderly man's house.

where he killed a man named Michael Plaisted by stabbing him eight times. It was later described as a 'premeditated' attack.

Pulsatid succumbed to his injuries. He was an old man of 77 years.

At the time the man, who had previously been convicted of sexually abusing children, was facing further charges.

He was charged with sex crimes against minors in Silvertown, where he lived.

Legally, the children's names cannot be made public during the trial in such cases, but three of them decided to speak to the PUTTHI. These three are the children of Sarah Sands.

Their story

The eldest of the brothers is Bradley, who was 12 at the time of the attack and who waived his right to remain anonymous last year to reveal the abuse and an interview with PUTTHI News. So did I, his younger brothers, Alfie and Reece, who are twins.

He was 11 years old when his mother killed the man accused of sexually abusing the children.

The three brothers are now 19 and 20 years old and remember when they found out what their mother had done as children.

They say that growing up with them in prison was difficult and that while Sarah feels remorse for her actions, her children are fiercely honest about their mother's actions.

'I think it was wrong and I can't deny it,' Bradley told the PUTTHI.

Alfie added: 'It made us feel safer. It didn't stop us from having nightmares, but it did give us a sense of security because now you don't have to walk down the street thinking you're going to run into this person on the street.'

'He lived right across the street from us,' says Bradley. I could open the window of my house and see his house.'

Reece, who was 11 at the time of the abuse, says it's "good to know he's dead," but says, "But what happened next couldn't be stopped, you know. That we often woke up in our sleep and started crying asking where is mom.'

Coming to Silvertown

Sarah Sands and her family had moved into their new home in the Silverstone area months before the murder. She became friends with Plaisted who lived alone.

As a respected person in the area, he would often sit on a bench in the street and interact with the locals and their children.

'I think he was a good person,' he says now. My mother cooked for them, took care of them and spent time with them whenever she had time.'

Plaisted arranged the papers in a shop and some children worked with him on Saturdays.

"One day she asked if Brad could help her and he was so excited," says Sands.

They believe Plaisted was also bullying their older son at a time when he was slowly gaining the twins' trust. He invited the three children to his home.

One night the twins revealed to them that while they were in the apartment, Lested had sexually assaulted them. A week later, Bradley revealed the same thing.

Allegations

Pulsitt was arrested and charged with sexual offenses against children. While awaiting a formal trial, the judge released him on bail, saying he could return to recovery.

Sands says she was upset and confused after the decision. He then moved his family to his mother's small house.

On the night of the murder, security cameras in the apartment building filmed him walking to Plaisted's house.

She says she wanted him to plead guilty to the charges and spare her children the ordeal of going to court. 'I didn't know what I was doing there.'

He says, 'I realized that I have made a big mistake. He had no regrets whatsoever.

He said, 'Your children are lying.' I felt like my world had stopped. I had a knife in my left hand and I remember him trying to grab it.'

Sarah Sands points out that she had no intention of killing Plaisted. A few hours later, she appeared at the police station with bloody clothes and a knife.

During his trial, the judge said he did not believe he had 'rationally thought what might happen to carrying the knife with him', but the judge added: 'I believe his The possibility of use was in his mind.'

Sarah Sands was found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder on the grounds of loss of control.

Increase in punishment

He was jailed for three-and-a-half years, but his sentence was later increased to seven-and-a-half years because the first verdict against him was found to be too lenient.

Judges at the Court of Appeal said they did nothing to help Plaisted, not even calling the emergency services.

He spent almost four years in jail. "I took the law into my own hands," she says now.

As a single mother behind bars, her three children went to live with their grandmother.

'We all lived in the same room, there was no privacy,' Bradley told the PUTTHI.

A mother from prison

"My grandmother used to call my mother in prison and ask her over the phone if I could go play football or go out with my friends," he says. So she would often 'forbid'.

Alfie says the three brothers 'missed a lot of things. He says that he used to visit his mother in jail regularly once a month.

'Sometimes you just want to tell your mother a problem,' he says now.

His friends know what happened but Bradley says he remembers other people asking 'where's your mum, we've never seen her.'

"The kids used to get mad at me about it," says Sands. Before I went to prison, we were a very close family and then suddenly I wasn't there anymore. It was terrible for them.'

When asked if she regrets ending Michael Plaisted's life, she said 'Yes of course.'

"I brought life into this world and I never realized that I could take someone else's life," she says.

Change of identity

During the trial it was revealed that Plaisted had changed his name to Robin Molt and was a convicted pedophile.

He had previously been convicted of 24 sex crimes over three decades. He served prison terms for these crimes but no one in the area, including the town hall where he was housed, knew about his past.

Sarah Sands has now joined a group campaigning to crack down on sex offenders who change their names.

Labor MP Sarah Champion, who raised the issue with politicians, says some sex offenders are using their new identities to avoid checks required for certain jobs.

"Once they change their name, they are issued a driver's license and passport under the new identity," says Sarah Champion.

'This allows them to make their past criminal records disappear and we are seeing these people then go into schools and other places where there are children and vulnerable people and exploit their positions of trust in the most appalling ways. '