Lucinda Adam/On what began as a perfectly normal day when he was 15, Brooklyn Bashford’s parents were violently murdered in their family home while he and his siblings were at school.
Their killer, a family friend who had been welcomed into their lives, then met the four children from school and tried to hide his horrific crime from them.
Derek Martin, 67, from Brighton, has been sentenced to a minimum term of 29 years in jail for the murders of Josh and Chloe Bashford in Newhaven, East Sussex.
Brooklyn, now 18, tells us about the day that shattered his happy family.
At 14:00 BST on 9 June 2023, as he walked out of school with friends having just sat one of his GCSE exams, Brooklyn got a text message.
“Meet me at Costa,” Derek Martin had written.
Brooklyn said this happened “all the time”.
“For me it was less common than for my sisters, but it happened once or twice a week,” he said.
Arriving at Costa Coffee, Brooklyn found Martin already there with his two sisters, aged 12 and seven, and his four-year-old brother.
“I remember he said to me that my parents had had a big argument,” Brooklyn recalls.
“Then he just sat down and we talked about football and all sorts really, just completely normal stuff.”
Family HandoutMartin was the ex-husband of Brooklyn’s grandmother. The pair had divorced many years before.
He and Chloe’s mum, Elaine, had four children together before Elaine remarried and had Chloe.
In recent years, after been released from a prison sentence for burglary, Martin had become closer to Elaine and his children and had formed a close friendship with Chloe.
Brooklyn said: “Gradually we were seeing more and more of him.
“He started taking my younger brother and sister to school. He would always turn up with coffee, all sorts really.”
What the children didn’t know that afternoon was just hours earlier Martin had “lost it” and violently killed their mother in what he later told police was an argument about money.
Minutes later, as their dad Josh arrived home from work, he had killed him too.
Eddie MitchellAfter leaving Costa Coffee, Martin drove the children towards Newhaven and they assumed he was taking them home.
Instead they stopped at Sainsbury’s and Martin got out of the car.
Brooklyn said: “I just saw him get out, run towards the corner, and a couple of seconds later come back, get back in the car.
“It was weird to me, but I didn’t really think too much of it.”
Waiting in the back seat of the car, Brooklyn’s 12-year-old sister was concerned that her mum hadn’t replied to text messages she had sent her earlier that afternoon.
She sent a message to Chloe’s phone asking: “Are you mad with me?”
She was unaware that at that very moment, Martin was discarding Chloe’s phone in bushes at the corner of the supermarket car park, where it was later found by police.
Martin then took the four children to McDonald’s in Newhaven and bought them all a meal.
Brooklyn said this was “still really normal”.
Again, the children thought they would be taken home, but instead Martin drove towards Brighton.
“I remember one of my sisters asking where mum and dad was and what was going on,” he said.
“And he was a bit snappy. This is the point where I started thinking he was a bit stressed.”
In Brighton, Martin stopped the car near the home of Chloe’s mum, his ex-wife Elaine.
He asked Brooklyn to take the younger children inside while he found a parking space, but he did not return.
Inside, Elaine and her husband Graham were packing to go away for the weekend and were not expecting the children.
“They were really surprised to see us, which was a bit weird we thought,” Brooklyn said.
‘We’re worried sick’
Growing increasingly concerned, his 12-year-old sister texted and called Martin repeatedly. Elaine tried to call him too.
At 18:11, Martin texted Elaine to say: “I’m so sorry, I can’t believe what I’ve done.
“Please look after the children really well. I’m just about to walk into the police station…don’t take the children home x.”
As panic grew, the Bashfords’ 12-year-old daughter messaged Chloe’s phone again, telling her: “Mum please answer. We’re all worried sick!”
Again, she received no reply.
Instead, some time later, police arrived at the house. They took the adults into the garden and told them that Chloe and Josh had been found dead in their home.
“I remember hearing my nan’s reaction,” said Brooklyn. “She just screamed.”
“I started crying. It was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt. I just felt my heart drop.”
After dropping the children off at Elaine’s, Martin had gone to a nearby shop and then sat on the beach drinking beers and smoking cigarettes.
At 19:00, he walked into Brighton Police Station and handed himself in.
In interviews after his arrest, Martin became emotional as he told officers: “I wanted to take them to McDonald’s to have dinner.
“Then I wanted to take them home and look after them but I couldn’t.”
Telling police about receiving multiple calls and texts from Brooklyn’s 12-year-old sister while at the beach he said: “She wanted to know where I was.
“She obviously wanted to go home. They didn’t know what happened.”
More than two years after the killings, Martin was found guilty of murdering Josh and Chloe at Brighton Law Courts in October 2025.
Having attended the trial, Brooklyn said outside court that he was “happy” with the verdict because “it’s what he deserves”.
He described Josh and Chloe as “amazing people” and “perfect parents” who were “always there for us”.
About Martin, Brooklyn said: “I hate him, obviously, but… I just don’t really have any feelings towards him any more. I just think he’s disgusting.”
Family handoutNow 18, Brooklyn has left school and is training to be an electrician.
He and his siblings are being cared for by their grandmother Elaine.
He said after many difficult months, they are “learning to live with” the shocking loss of their parents.
“It’s hard to think about them without thinking about what happened to them,” he said.
“But 99% of the time it’s just good memories about trips that we’ve done, good things we’ve done.
“But it’s always in the back of your mind. You’ll never get rid of it.”