The son of a woman who was jailed for murder after she killed her husband has told how he had to clean the blood-splattered crime scene.
Sally Challen’s son David said he never ‘shied away’ from the violence his mother committed after she spent her married life in a controlling relationship with her husband Richard.
After Sally, now 65, hit her husband of more than 31-years with a hammer more than 20 times, forensic teams did a sweep on the family home in Surrey.
David has now said that after eating his breakfast he had to clean-up the mess left behind by the officers.
David (pictured above) has opened up about the new documentary where he talks about the death of his father
Sally Challen with her son David, during a press conference in central London after she left the Old Bailey where she was told that she will not face a retrial over the death of her husband Richard Challen
Richard was 22 when he met sally, then 16, the two then went on to have two sons together during their marriage
Richard Challen with son David as a child, centre and brother James. David has now said that he felt sorry for his father
Speaking on a new BBC documentary that airs next week, David now 32, recalled how he felt sad for his father and the way he had behaved towards his mother, after new pictures revealed the aftermath of the attack on August 14 2010.
The images show blood over furniture such as a table and chairs. Blood was also splattered across the kitchen floor.
‘After it happened, they didn’t clean up very well. You could see my dad’s blood. I had to clean it up. It was quite eerie, but at the same time it was our home.’
The new BBC show charts Sally’s story after her murder conviction was quashed earlier this year under coercive control laws.
Family support: Sally, centre, with sons James (left) and his partner, Jen, and David, right, with his partner, John
Sally with her abusive husband, Richard. She finally snapped in August 2010 and bludgeoned him to death with a hammer at the family home in Claygate, Surrey
David added that he chose to identify his father’s body as he felt he had to.
‘I don’t think I ever shied away from the violence that she committed.
‘I felt I had to, just to see everything that she did. I had to feel everything that he felt so I knew everything that happened.’
He added that his father hadn’t been aware of what he was doing, and the ‘toxic situation he had been creating’.
After being jailed in 2011 for murder, Sally served nearly a decade before new evidence showed she had been psychologically abused by her husband Richard for decades.
The couple on holiday in France with sons David and James in the 1990s
In 2015 a law recognised coercive control as a form of domestic abuse and Sally and her family campaigned for her release.
In June Sally was freed after admitting manslaughter.
Clips from the new documentary which is out on December 9 on BBC Two at 9pm, show Richard posing with two naked models on his Ferrari.
It was later heard that he had sent these images out on Christmas cards in order to humiliate his wife.
Clips were also shown where Sally is playing with her two children, only for her husband to be mocking her clothing.
The Ferrari-driving car salesman at an event in 2002. He had previously sent out a Christmas card posing with models and the car
Sally had to deal with many incidents like this over the years and she finally reached tipping point when she heard a voicemail on her husband’s phone from a female friend, trying to arrange a date.
After her arrest Sally claimed she ‘just couldn’t take it anymore’. She said she just ‘picked up a hammer and hit him’.
During the documentary she revealed she didn’t like to voice her opinion if it differed from her husband’s.
Despite the abuse Richard put her through, Sally still wears her wedding ring today, as she claims she ‘still misses’ her husband.
The pair met when Sally was 16 and Richard was 22.
Sally also claimed she was raped by Richard and after accusing him of cheating, he then told her she had been ‘going crazy’.