Axe monster who butchered EastEnders star lover & their kids was nailed by incredible stroke of luck – thanks to The Sun

WHEN police were accused of “bungling” the hunt for the axeman who killed former EastEnders actress Sian Blake and her two young sons, the pressure was intense.

The prime suspect, her partner and father of the boys Arthur Simpson-Kent, had gone on the run to Ghana in Africa and the Home Office was making it clear they wanted the fiend caught.

Now we can reveal that, incredibly, it was only thanks to a copy of The Sun seen in a Ghanaian bar that he was caught.

Despite Sian — who had terminal motor neurone disease — and her kids not being seen since December 13, 2015, they were initially considered “medium risk” missing persons.

Officers in Belvedere, South East London, only upgraded the case to high risk after Christmas — shortly before the family’s remains were discovered in their garden.

Detective Inspector Steve Keogh found himself facing the flak, even though none of it was his fault.

There was, in fact, a very real chance that hairdresser Simpson-Kent would NEVER be found.

And Steve reveals it was only due to a “real fluke” — and the help of The Sun — that the triple killer was finally brought to justice.

Simpson-Kent had fled to the resort of Butre in Ghana, where a local bar owner was regularly sent old copies of Britain’s favourite paper by relatives back in the UK.

The female expat saw a picture of Simpson-Kent on our front page the night after she had spoken to him at her business.

She told her sister — who, in another remarkable coincidence, was a serving officer in the Met Police at the time — and local cops soon swooped on the wanted man as he cut coconuts in a secluded cove.

Steve, speaking for the first time about The Sun’s role in snaring the killer, says: “One of the things I have learned in my career is that things can turn on what appear to be absolute flukes.

"That was certainly one of these.

"The fact that the person who directed us to him on that beach saw the front page of the newspaper highlights that perfectly.

“Without the Press coverage we wouldn’t have found him, or certainly not as quickly as we did.”

The incredible conclusion to the search for the monster who murdered Sian, 43, and her children Zachary, eight, and four-year-old Amon, is recounted in the first episode of a new series on the TRUE CRIME channel this Wednesday.

Retired-officer-turned-author Steve presents the show, titled Secrets Of A Murder Detective, where he examines a series of high-profile cases.

He was not going to include any of the 100-plus murders he had dealt with during his 12 years as a homicide detective in the Met.

But he then decided it was important to talk about what happened to Sian.

Steve, 52 — an officer for three decades — says: “This was the one case in my career that always stood out and will remain with me.

Child deaths were always the most difficult to deal with, and here they had been killed by their father in their own home in a violent death

Steve Keogh

“We approached Sian’s family and they were all right with us going with it.”

Relatives of Sian, who played Frankie Pierre in the BBC soap during the 1990s, reported her missing on December 16, 2015.

Police attending her bungalow in Belvedere on that day spoke to Simpson-Kent, who said his wife and kids were away travelling.

Relatives trying to contact Sian, who couldn’t leave home without assistance due to her condition, received messages from her phone saying she had gone away.

It wasn’t until the start of January that murder squad detectives were called in to investigate.

By then, Simpson-Kent had already fled the country.

Steve knew it was not looking good for the three missing people, but says: “You always hold the hope, especially when it comes to the children, that even if he has killed Sian he might have put the kids somewhere.”

Simpson-Kent had repainted the inside walls of his home to hide evidence after callously slaying his two children and helpless partner.

But thanks to an ultraviolet light source, detectives were able to see blood stains in the kitchen and bedroom.

Analysis of the splatter told them his victims had met a very violent end.

Hollow stakes were placed into the garden to release the scent from any buried bodies there, and cadaver dogs sniffed out the grave site.

Father-of-four Steve, whose two youngest children are the same age as Zachary and Amon, says: “That call from the scene, when they said they had three bodies, was probably the hardest part of my career.

“Child deaths were always the most difficult to deal with, and here they had been killed by their father in their own home in a violent death.”

At this point the team, led by Detective Inspector Richard Leonard, who Steve interviews in the series, had only one suspect.

Steve, who was an acting DI at the time, explains: “There was no doubt whatsoever, but you still have to build up a case.”

What they needed was to speak to Simpson-Kent — and that was going to be difficult because the Met Police has no jurisdiction in Ghana.

Steve feared the fugitive might have returned to the country of his birth to take his own life.

As it turned out the opposite was true — he was partying in bars.

I learned a long time ago that you can’t get into the heads of killers. They are in a different space to us

Steve Keogh

The detective says: “I learned a long time ago that you can’t get into the heads of killers. They are in a different space to us.

“You can’t quite grasp him going from what he did to partying.”

London detectives had to rely on the overseas cops, who were helpful but insisted on doing things their way.

When they received the information that Simpson-Kent was on the coast, Ghana’s police force wanted to send a team from the capital Accra, 155 miles from Butre, rather than the nearest officers.

Steve, who had remained in England, recalls: “It was frustrating, I knew where he was, I was speaking to the woman who had seen him, but what the Ghanaian police wouldn’t do is send cops from the police station nearby.

“I felt it was my job to find him, so the pressure was on me.

"I was getting calls from representatives of the Home Office. It was a lot of pressure.”

Steve was relieved when heavily armed police finally took Simpson-Kent into custody before he was extradited to Britain to face justice.

The brute, 56 — who later pleaded guilty to the three murders — got a whole life tariff in October 2016.

The court heard Sian had planned to leave the cannabis dealer and take their children with her.

Simpson-Kent told a psychiatrist after his arrest that he had bludgeoned them with an axe.

Sian’s is not the only case that haunts Steve.

He was part of New Scotland Yard’s elite anti-terrorist branch when extremists killed 52 people in the attacks on London on July 7, 2005.

He and a colleague were first on the scene at Edgware Road, where an Underground train had been bombed.

He recalls: “We stayed there for two weeks. We did body recovery and dealt with the scene.

"That was the hardest point in my career.”

Steve later received a special commendation for this work.

The detective, though, regrets not getting all the convictions he wanted over the slaying of 17-year-old shooting victim Samuel Ogunro, in Peckham, South London, in June 2010.

While Ola Apena was found guilty of conspiracy to murder, no one was ever jailed for pulling the trigger.

Steve says: “They lured him into a car and shot him in the head and set fire to the car.

"That’s the one that sits most uncomfortably with me.”

He also struggles to forget the horrific murder of three-year-old Daniel Evbuomwan, who was battered to death by his uncle Ben Igbinedion for wetting the bed in 2013 in Bromley, South East London.

The detective says: “I was at the post mortem for Daniel and the pathologist wouldn’t believe me when I said the victim had been found in his bed.

"He thought he must have been thrown out of a first floor window or hit by a car at 30mph.

“Seeing his little body at the post mortem is something which will always stay with me.”

•  Secrets Of A Murder Detective airs on TRUE CRIME from Wednesday at 10pm through July, with new episodes weekly.