Daughter of Carole Packman murderer Russell Causley says her father should never be freed

The daughter of the man who murdered her mother almost 40 years ago has said he should never be freed from prison.

Russell Causley, now 79, was handed a life sentence for killing Carole Packman, who vanished in 1985, a year after he moved his lover into their home in Bournemouth, Dorset.

He was eligible parole from 2012, after several parole hearings he was freed from prison in 2020, after serving more than 23 years for the murder. He was returned to jail in November last year after breaching his licence conditions.

Causley, who never revealed where he hid Ms Packman's body, is to become the first person to have a public parole review hearing.

But his daughter Sam Gillingham, 53, who now lives in Northamptosnhire, says he should never be freed from jail.

"I don't have anything. I don't have death certificate. I don't have an inquest. I don't have anywhere that I can go.

"I quite simply don't know where she is. And so therefore, on that basis he should not be freed. And that's it, end of. And we should not keep on having to be put through this."

Sam was just a teenager in 1985 and it was she who reported her mother missing. Causley told her she had deserted them.

It was only in 1993, when her father tried to fake his own death off the coast of the Channel Islands in an insurance scam, police reinvestigated.

When he was in prison for fraud, he admitted killing her, and was convicted of murder in 1996. That was overturned in 2003, but he was found guilty again in a retrial the following year.

The family have been fighting to keep him inside after the passing of a bill - known as Helen's Law. It was designed to ensure that murderers who withhold information about where their victims are buried could face longer prison sentences.

It followed a campaign named after Helen McCourt from Merseyside who was murdered in 1988. The insurance clerk vanished on her way home from work. Pub landlord Ian Simms was convicted on DNA evidence of her abduction and murder. He has never revealed where Helen's body is.

Sam feels that despite the new law, Causley will win his freedom.

"I was gutted when he was released two years ago. Absolutely gutted. I couldn't believe it. He may have well just torn my heart out.

"My expectations are measured, they released him once I expect them to do it again. It was a minor breach that he's done. And unfortunately. It's not strong enough to keep him inside until he dies. And he's lived too bloody long."

She says that the new public parole hearings do not go far enough.

"It should be as public as a court... I actually think that this shouldn't be just a panel of three people, this is not your standard case, it's compounded by the fact that my mother is still a missing person and I think this should be put in front of a similar thing to a jury."

He will have his parole hearing next month.