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A blizzard was blowing across the Peak District when the call came in that a prisoner on his way to court had attacked his guards and fled across the moors.

Chief Inspector Peter Howse took charge of the manhunt – but he could never have known the unimaginable horrors that were about to unfold.

Before police had even arrived on the remote scene, Billy Hughes had already taken an unsuspecting family hostage in the first house he had come to – Pottery Cottage.

And what happened over the next three days in January 1977 would shock Britain, and haunt Peter for the rest of his life.

After using vacuum cleaner flex and washing line to tie up Gill Moran, her husband Richard and their 10-year-old daughter Sarah, as well as Gill’s elderly parents Arthur and Amy, Hughes kept the family captive inside the house for a terrifying 55 hours.

Holding them in separate rooms, he played macabre psychological games with them – while secretly killing them one by one.

At times the family, believing he wouldn’t harm them if they complied, even cooked meals, drank whisky or played card games with him – unaware that young Sarah was lying dead in another room.

Gill, the sole survivor, was only saved – after a high-speed car chase – by Peter wrestling with the killer just as he was about to bring an axe down on her neck.

For more than 40 years what really happened inside Pottery Cottage has remained untold.

(Image: MEN MEDIA) (Image: PA)

Peter, the police chief who saved Gill's life, has now told his story, using previously unpublished witness statements, crime scene photos and police reports.

His book, The Pottery Cottage Murders, is out this week.

“In all my 34-year police career I’ve never had to deal with anything quite as horrific,” says Peter, now retired and living in Norfolk.

“It was the one case which still affects everyone involved.”

Gill, now 81, has vowed to remain silent about the nightmare which robbed her of everyone she loved. Billy Hughes, 30, from Preston, was on his way from Leicester Prison to court in Chesterfield, where he was on trial for rape and GBH, he attacked the two guards escorting him in a taxi on January 12, 1977.

He had smuggled out a knife from the prison kitchens which he used to stab Donald Sprintall and Kenneth Simmonds in the neck, leaving them fighting for their lives.

Hughes fled across Derbyshire’s moorland before arriving at the Morans’ family home at Eastmoor.

There he picked up two axes kept outside for chopping wood before creeping into the house, where he found Gill’s mum and dad, Amy and Arthur, aged 68 and 72.

Shortly afterwards, school secretary Gill, 38, returned home, before her daughter Sarah came in from school, followed by her husband Richard, 36.

Gill later told police how Hughes then began tying them up.

“He started to tie Mum up,” she said. “He tied her hands behind her back. Dad said, ‘you’re not tying me up’. There was a bit of commotion as we pleaded with Dad to do as he asked.

(Image: PA)

Sarah was very upset.” It was the last time she saw her daughter, as Hughes carried each person to different rooms.

The first Peter Howes heard of the fugitive was an hour and a half after he had escaped, when the phone rang at his office in Buxton police station.

He remembers: “I went straight to the scene and set up a three-mile perimeter. We carried on the search for three days and I went on the radio to warn people to look out, to check on their neighbours and to call if they saw anything suspicious.

"But we didn’t get a single call.” In fact several neighbours and friends did check on the Morans, but Hughes had been standing next to Gill when the telephone rang, and told her exactly how she should reply.

He also made her call Sarah’s school and call in sick to her work.

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And while Peter was in a race against time to find the escaped convict, Hughes was revelling in murder. When Gill asked her about daughter Sarah, he replied with a caring tone: “Sound asleep in mum’s room.”

Later, when the worried mother asked why she hadn’t asked for her ‘comfort towel’ and favourite toy elephant, he took them to her room, telling her on his return: “She was really pleased to see them.”

In fact Hughes had murdered Sarah on the first night, slitting her throat and leaving her body in a foetal position on the floor.

He is also believed to have killed Gill’s father Arthur that night

Hughes even allowed Gill and Richard to leave the house for provisions on their own, confident they would return without betraying him to protect their loved ones.

It was three days later when Hughes finally left Pottery Cottage, fleeing by night in Gill’s car and taking her as a hostage. But as they were leaving, mum Amy staggered out of the front door with blood gushing from a neck wound.

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Hughes, who thought he had killed her moments earlier, ordered Gill into the snow.

Police chief Peter, arriving home after his shift, got the call that neighbours had raised the alarm and officers found Amy dead in a pool of blood in the garden, with the bodies of Arthur, Richard and Sarah inside.

Peter recalls: “We got to the front of the police convoy chasing the car through icy country roads, reaching speeds in excess of 80mph.” At one point Hughes lost control and crashed. Surrounded by police, Hughes grabbed Gill and held an axe above her neck.

Peter says: “He went into a frenzy and went for her. I instinctively jumped through the broken window, the axe skimmed her head and went into the back of the seat.

"Then it was just chaos, fighting with him inside the car. I can’t remember much about it. Then I heard the shots and he fell away.”

It was the first time British police had shot dead a suspect, later ruled as justifiable homicide at an inquest.

The Pottery Cottage Murders by Carol Ann Lee and Peter Howse, is published tomorrow by Robinson, priced £18.99.

A previous version of this article stated that Gill Moran had allowed Peter Howse to tell the story for the first time. It also stated that Peter Howse met Gill two years ago. Ms Moran has since confirmed that she did not give permission and that she has not seen Mr Howse for 43 years. We have been asked to clarify that Gill will never speak to the press, has not and will never give permission for or condone a film about her family’s personal tragedy, and has made no financial gain from recent books and articles. We are happy to set out Ms Moran's position.