The final straw of a family annihilator?

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Every time something of notoriety happens, particularly if it's criminal the media just switch their computers to autopilot and gloss over what happens in the vaguest of ways. Name, picture, what happened and "the investigation continues". Nobody truly knows what happened behind the scenes of in almost all the cases they read about in the media and strolling through the court judgments I managed to find someone interesting.

What actually triggers some people to commit such such grotesque crimes that they leave an entire nation revolted yet baffled? In August 2008 a man called Christopher Foster who was once a successful millionaire shot his daughter and wife dead while they slept, shot his horses, shot his dogs and torched his enviable countryside mansion to the ground along with his entire fleet of cars. The reason? He spiralled into crippling debt that he could never repay after dodgy business dealings and his family who was oblivious to his debt was about to be thrown out of their mansion and have every possession of value stripped from them.

Linked is a court judgment from May 2008 which could well have been the final tipping point for Christopher. The judgment happened three months before the murders and gets into the fine details of the downfall of a millionaire.

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5b46f20d2c94e0775e7f15d4

People succumb to debt all the time....it’s sad.

I was in debt. I am in less debt now. It’s not a good feeling....

It was a case from many years ago that was on the edge of my mind but my memory has been tripped again now. Back in late 2008 it mortified everyone how such a man who seemingly had everything could do what he did. The media just glossed over his dodgy dealings but never got into the true nitty gritty complexities of what happened.

Basically he had a contract to manufacture a special type of insulation he invented for a company (DRC) but the contract stipulated the materials needed must be sourced from one particular company. Christopher was apparently a big spender and I mean huge so instead of cutting back on his expenses he decided to go about increasing his income but done so dishonestly. He found a new supplier without DRC's approval to cut costs and increase margins. DRC were furious and took him to court.

Realising he was in trouble he set up a second company and transferred all assets from the "dodgy" company into the new one with the intention to prevent those assets being lost in the ensuing legal action. He failed and DRC took all his assets, his company and most importantly his patent leaving him with nothing. He was also terrible at paying tax and owed inland revenue about £835000 and was likely to be held personally liable for the absolute mess and obnoxious behaviour he partook in while being a business man.

He told his family nothing. I find nuggets like this shedding light on big incidents fascinating.

Debt is not nice at all but I can't even comprehend how bad that much debt will be for someone who was once at the very top of his game.

These kinds of stories are fascinating.

He seems like a victim of *pride*, which is considered the deadliest sin.

It seems like he could file bankruptcy and start over.

However, he would have to humble himself, endure shame, and feel like a failure to himself and his family.

So, he decided on actions which avoided this.

It was all about pride and loss of face to him. His level of arrogance and how brazenly he acted is amazing for a company director. The level of intelligence he used to try and avoid liability is impressive.

The media saying he was a dodgy businessman in financial trouble doesn't to it justice. What was going on behind the scenes out of the way of the general public was all the more interesting as it gives an insight into poor business practices from a strictly judicial insight and not glossed over with a media spin on events.

This is the view of what three judges thought of him and his mistakes just months before he ended it all.

Truly fascinating.