CCTV footage has captured the moment a killer took his 13-year-old victim’s Xbox to trade for drugs after brutally murdering him along with his mother, sister and friend.
Damien Bendall, 32, left the home of his pregnant girlfriend Terri Harris with her son John Paul Bennet’s game console the morning after he murdered her, raped and killed John’s sister Lacey Bennett, 11, and her friend, 11-year-old Connie Gent, had killed.
The drug addict Brute was filmed leaving her home in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, just before 6am on September 19 last year, after the quadruple murder the night before – for which Bendall was jailed for life today.
Bendall was caught on CCTV boarding a taxi into Sheffield and entering the vehicle with the Xbox in a carrying case, which he later traded ‘for drugs’ – with his victims dead at home.
Damien Bendall has admitted to murdering Lacey Bennett, 11, her brother John Paul Bennett, 13, their mother Terri Harris, 35, and 11-year-old Connie Gent in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, last year
CCTV footage later that morning shows Bendall exiting a cab without the bag with the Xbox and returning to the property.
He told the cab driver his night hadn’t been ‘that bad, a bit crazy’ and when asked what he was up to, he replied: ‘Just chilling with the family, really,: the court heard.
‘Just before 6 a.m. you left the house with John’s Xbox. Traded the Xbox for cocaine. You told the cab driver you were ‘chilling with the family,’ the judge told Bendall as he sentenced him to life behind bars.
CCTV shows the taxi pulling away from Terri Harris’ house. Another piece of CCTV footage later that morning shows Bendall getting out of the cab and walking down a street with the Xbox in his carrying case.
The killer later told police he ‘did three to four bags of cocaine and then passed out.’
CCTV footage later that morning shows Bendall exiting a cab without the bag with the Xbox and returning to the property.
CCTV footage captured the moment Bendall took 13-year-old John’s Xbox after brutally beating him, his mother, sister and their friend to death with a claw hammer.
He was later arrested and told that footage released by police shows him saying “I’m going back to jail” and “I murdered four people,” seemingly unconcerned about the horror he’d caused .
The judge said he told police: ‘Bet you don’t usually get four murders in Killamarsh, do you? A good five when my wife had a baby.’
Judge Sweeney in court this afternoon showed little faith in Bendall’s pathetic attempt to explain away the murders by claiming he had a brain injury which his own attorney said no tests had proved. Nor was his drug use recognized as a mitigating circumstance.
The judge told him: ‘You have a significant history of violent crime.
‘In April 2020 you began a relationship with Terri Harris that became abusive and controlling and distanced Terri from her family.
Bendall’s defense theorized that his judgment was mentally impaired.
He later claimed his actions were influenced by a brain injury suffered a few years earlier. Extensive neurological tests have not shown this.
Throughout the process, the CPS instructed its own medical experts to assess whether the arguments were valid, which they did not.
With all medical considerations exhausted, the evidence that he had murdered all four victims without compromising his actions was overwhelming and Bendall admitted all charges.
‘On September 18, you carried out a brutal and vicious attack on a defenseless woman and three children.
‘You attacked Lacey downstairs and carried her upstairs where you raped her on the bed where her mother had been killed as her life ebbed away.’
Andrew Baxter, Assistant Attorney General for the East Midlands, said of his reaction to the life injunction handed to Damien Bendall: ‘It is difficult to put into words the scale of Damien Bendall’s barbaric and horrific actions.
‘I also want to thank my dedicated legal team who worked tirelessly on the case to ensure that this perpetrator would not harm anyone else.’
Earlier, Lacey and John’s father Jason had told Jason of his agony that he could never kiss her again and tell them I love them.
And her grandmother and Terri’s mother, Angela Smith, said: ‘I told John and Lacey there were no monsters. How wrong I was.’
Bendall had previously tried to plead guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility, but this was denied by prosecutors.Outside Derby Crown Court this morning he finally admitted to murdering and raping schoolgirl Lacey during the attack on September 18 last year.
Prosecutor Louis Mably KC said Bendall – who once boasted about killing a dog with a brick – murdered each victim in a different room of the house with a claw hammer.
He said Lacey was raped as she lay dying, adding: ‘The circumstances are truly despicable. Terri was in the early stages of pregnancy.’
