In March 2016, Tracey Wilkinson came upon Aaron Barley, a homeless man in his early 20s, hunkered down in a cardboard box outside a supermarket in Stourbridge. The sight of Barley, hungry and struggling to keep warm, stopped her in her tracks and she decided to try to help.

Her husband, Peter Wilkinson, said: “My wife was a very compassionate woman.

“She did voluntary work helping old people. She was very chatty and made people feel at ease. She wouldn’t see harm come to anybody; she liked to help people.”

Tracey Wilkinson, a full-time mother, drove Barley to the offices of the council and helped him secure a place in a hostel. “Things developed from there,” said Peter Wilkinson, a 47-year-old businessman. “He had no money and food, so Tracey would organise breakfast and dinner for him every day, be it at our house or somewhere else.”



He recalled how, over dinner one night at the Wilkinsons’ home, Barley told the family about his aspirations. “I can remember quite vividly him saying to me: ‘I just need somebody to give me a chance, I need somebody to give me a lucky break.’”

Peter Wilkinson gave Barley labouring work at one of his businesses in Newport, south Wales, and it went well for five months.

“But in September 2016 he went off the rails. He started taking drugs and, as a business, we had to let him go. It was very amicable. He said at the time that he had started taking drugs because his mother had died,” he said.

This was not true; Barley’s parents had died when he was a boy. He was brought up by foster families and prompted a police appeal when he went missing aged 13. After leaving school, he drifted from address to address in the West Midlands, and from job to job, until he became homeless.

The Wilkinsons lost contact with Barley after he was sacked. But early one morning in late October or early November 2016, Peter Wilkinson found Barley sleeping in the corner of their driveway.

“I got him up and made him some tea. I believe he’d been on the streets and had been badly beaten. He was covered in bruises and my wife decided that as a family, we should help him again,” he said.

They managed to find him council accommodation and he did odd jobs for the family to earn cash.

He spent Christmas Day with the family. “He wrote my wife a card saying ‘To the mother that I never had’. He treated her a bit like a second mother,” Peter Wilkinson said.

In the new year, Barley secured full-time work and a new flat. He would come for dinner once or twice a week. In March, he shared a curry and a couple of bottles of beer with Peter Wilkinson.

“I dropped him off back at his flat that night. And that was it for about three weeks: the next time I saw him he was sticking a knife into my shoulder,” he said.

On the day of the attacks, 30 March, Peter Wilkinson had taken the dog for a walk and was surprised to find no sign of life on his return home. “I can remember looking through the window thinking that everybody must have overslept,” he said.

In fact, Tracey Wilkinson was dead upstairs, and the couple’s 13-year-old son, Pierce, was fatally wounded.

Order of service for Tracey and Pierce Wilkinson’s funeral. Photograph: Richard Vernalls/PA

“I opened the back door and as I did it, [Barley] jumped out, all dressed in black, with a big knife held over his head, and started stabbing me,” Peter Wilkinson said.

“I grappled with him and he stabbed me six times – twice in the face, twice in the abdomen and twice in the back.

“He said ‘Die, you bastard’ as he stuck the knife into me. I said to him after he’d stabbed me, ‘Aaron we tried to help you’, and he stuck the knife into my stomach and said ‘Die, you bastard’.”

The attack stopped and Peter Wilkinson heard the sound of his car being driven off. He dialled 999 and staggered into the garden, collapsing into a patio chair.



“I remember talking to the person on the other end of the phone and realising that I was actually dying. The next thing I remember is ambulances turning up and hearing helicopters overhead, and the police arrived,” he said.

Police inspect the family car that was crashed not far from their home. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

“I told the other ambulance men to go into the house. I remember one coming out behind me and saying ‘One deceased and one in cardiac arrest’. I knew at that point that I had most likely lost Tracey and Pierce. Then I was taken to the QE [Queen Elizabeth hospital Birmingham]. I thought I was going to die.”

The couple’s daughter, Lydia, now 19, was away studying at Bristol University. After hearing there had been a stabbing in Stourbridge, she searched online for news of the incident and saw an image of her house surrounded by police tape. Police officers broke the news to her that her mother and brother were dead, and her father was seriously injured.

As she was driven to Birmingham, Lydia said she began to think about planning a triple funeral.



“They took me to critical care. I saw my dad with countless machines hooked up to him, a lot of doctors around his bed. I remember thinking I was going to lose him as well, because nobody could survive that,” she said.

“I held his hand, much like I am doing now, and said that I was there, and he opened his eyes and looked at me, and then went back unconscious. I thought that was going to be the last time I saw my dad alive.”

Lydia had to identify the bodies of her mother and brother. “I went in and I just stayed with my mum and brother for a while, and said that I was sorry I couldn’t protect them, and I stroked their hair. I just stayed there because I knew that was going to be the last time I saw them in my life. From that point on, it was a case of I lived every day for dad,” she said.

Peter Wilkinson spent 11 nights in hospital and the news of his loved ones’ deaths was broken to him. “The physical scars will heal; the mental scars never will,” he said.

Paying tribute to her mother, a former champion ballroom dancer, and brother, Lydia said: “My mum was stunning. She had a beautiful personality. She was just very caring and helpful.

“I was due to come home the day after and pick out a dress for my university ball. To have my best friend taken from me at such a young age is a hardship I would never wish on anyone.

Lydia Wilkinson with a floral tribute at the family home after the attack. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

“Pierce was just handsome, funny, clever. He was very personable, everybody made friends with Pierce. He could make friends in an empty room.

“They loved to watch films. Their favourite pastime was on a cold winter’s day to get under a blanket together and watch films such as Star Trek or Star Wars. They both shared a passion for the Carry On films.”

Lydia and her father have moved back to the family home.



Peter Wilkinson said: “It’s our home and, after taking so much from us, we couldn’t possibly have it that he would take anything else. We love the house. It was very much a family home that we had built and renovated ourselves, and we like being there.”

Lydia has resumed her studies in biology. “We are determined to not let this take away any more of our life,” she said. “I’d like to be a researcher and do medical research, to continue the help and support that my mum would give to people. By researching things like cancer and Parkinson’s disease, I hope to give back to people and continue her legacy,” she said.

Her father said: “My wife cared for others and it’s just so tragic that after trying to help people and to help Aaron, that he should turn on us in this way for no apparent reason.”

During police interviews, Barley, 23 at the time, refused to say why he had attacked the family.

“There’s no motive, there is no explanation,” said Peter Wilkinson. “My personal feeling is that he’d lost his job, he lost his flat. And he decided that because his life was going bad ways, he was going to take it out on the people that had cared and looked after him. I wish we had never met him – I wish my wife had never set eyes on him.”