A killer and a coward: British father who slit his children's throats in France hangs himself in jail ahead of his murder trial.

                                      A British man who cut his children's throats with a kitchen knife has hanged himself in prison, French police said today. Julian Stevenson, 48, killed Mathew, 10, and Carla, five in May, apparently in a fit of rage over a custody battle with his ex-wife. He left the scene of his crime, near the eastern French city of Lyon, on a pair of roller skates but was later found covered in blood.

                                                                                     

The unemployed father reportedly confessed to the crime and was in custody awaiting trial.

A source for French prosecutors today told French national news agency AFP: 'He hanged himself on Monday in a sports hall reserved for inmates held in solitary confinement'.

A spokesperson for Britain's Foreign Office said: 'We are aware of the death of a British national in detention in France on 30 December 2013 and we are providing consular assistance to the family'.

CCTV footage of Stevenson hours before the tragedy shows him buying his children sweets, as his son and daughter clutching pink balloons.

Stevenson had not been allowed to see his children without a chaperone after attacking his French wife, Stephanie, in 2010.

The day of the murder was the first time Stevenson had brought the children home to his apartment on the second floor of a four-storey building without a third party being present.

Ahmed Benguedda, a neighbour in the Lyon suburb, said the couple had divorced 'two or three years ago' and Stevenson had drinking problems and was a wife beater.

After the divorce the wife, who worked as an assistant accountant, moved out of the apartment they had jointly bought and was living in the Isere region of eastern France.

                                                   But the children were 'well-balanced', said Benguedda, whose seven-year-old daughter often played with them. In May, the children's British grandparents said how devastated they felt for their ex-daughter-in-law.

Michael and Diane Stevenson, Stevenson's parents, said they were 'crushed' by their son's crime.

Mr Stevenson said: 'We are very upset for Stephanie and her family, who don't deserve this at all.

'She has her own apartment near her family and she and the kids stayed there for quite a long while until she got her own place.

'We want a message to go to them. We send them our deepest sympathies. We would send a card, but we know they would just tear it up.'

  posted by Emanto Ngaloru  Dec 31, 2013.