Man who stabbed ex and son to death had made threats

A MAN who stabbed his ex-girlfriend and their young son to death had been arrested a week earlier by police for threatening to kill his family.

Andrew Cairns, 44, from Derbyshire, stabbed Rachael Slack and 23-month-old Auden before turning the knife on himself.

Slack, 38, was three months pregnant by her new boyfriend, having been for her first scan last week.

Friends said she was the “happiest she had ever been” after starting a new life with the unnamed man following the breakdown of her relationship with Cairns.

It is not known whether she had just told Cairns she was pregnant by her new boyfriend.

But it is known that he went to the house in Holbrook, Derbyshire, on Wednesday morning and appears to have locked all the doors and windows before launching the ferocious and bloody attack.

As he stabbed them to death, the mother could be seen “screaming in terror” from a downstairs window at the cottage in Well Yard.

Slack’s new boyfriend arrived at the three-storey Victorian property as police and paramedics broke in to find the bloodbath. He was seen to collapse in shock in the front garden.

Cairns was alive when the emergency services broke in but later died. The toddler was taken to hospital by air ambulance but died later from his injuries.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is deciding whether it will carry out its own investigation after a friend revealed that Cairns was arrested last week for making threats to kill his estranged family.

Slack moved to Holbrook, near her family’s home in Ripley, last year after living in Spain with Cairns and their son. It is understood that Cairns, who had suffered severe depression, initially remained in Spain before following his family back to Britain.