Widow of man shot dead by police sent ‘suicide’ text by children

The widow of an armed man killed by police in his own home told an inquest he “almost egged on” officers to shoot him after he tied up two of his children and threatened suicide over his failed marriage. Father-of-three Richard Davies fired six shots in as many minutes from a homemade gun as he hung out of a living room window “shouting obscenities” at officers who had just arrived at the marital home he shared with wife Samantha. The 41-year-old, who had been drinking throughout the day, told police to “f****** shoot me” before an officer, concerned he would use the weapon again, fired a single shot to the chest from a Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle, jurors heard at the Peterborough Town Hall inquest. Mr Davies died at the family home in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, on October 21, 2015. His widow, who had been with him for 20 years, told jurors that she was at her sister’s house when she received a text message from their eldest child. It read: “Call the police. Get them to come to our house. Dad’s going to kill himself. He’s tied us up. I’m not joking.” She said she went straight to the house and found that one of her children had escaped by jumping from an upstairs window, but she believed her other two children were still in the house. She said she banged on the door and her husband opened it. “He had a very angry look on his face,” said Mrs Davies. “It was almost like a glazed look he had on his face. He didn’t really look like my husband.” She said he later appeared at the door while digging the tip of a kitchen knife slightly into his chest. Her other two children later escaped by jumping from windows. Mrs Davies said officers asked her to go into her neighbour’s house, and she recalled armed officers alerting her husband of their presence and him shouting back. “He was shouting at them to shoot him,” she said. “He was almost egging them on.” She claimed she was not told that her husband had died until she visited the hospital. Earlier that day she said she had a conversation with her husband in which “it was made clear that the marriage was over”. “I think on several occasions he would try to convince me it might be fixable,” she said. “He was saying he wasn’t sure what his life would be like without me and the children in it.” But she said “there wasn’t an ounce of anger” and it was a practical conversation about him moving out the following weekend. “At that point he seemed to have some acceptance around what needed to happen,” said Mrs Davies. She said she had never seen his home-made gun or ammunition before, and her family were “forever changed” by what happened. The inquest heard Mr Davies had a troubled past, having battled depression, served time in prison for breaking a man’s jaw, had bowel cancer in 2012 and was signed off work following difficulty with a colleague. The inquest continues.