He was jailed for life in October 1987 aged 36 after being convicted alongside two others of murdering four people.
A woman whose parents and grandparents were murdered in a massacre at a country house dinner party in the 1980s has spoken of her relief that one of the killers has lost a Parole Board bid to be freed from jail.
George Stephenson was jailed for life in October 1987 aged 36 after being convicted alongside two others of murdering four people, raping a woman and robbery a year earlier in what became known as the Fordingbridge massacre.
The judge recommended a minimum term of 25 years but his tariff was later raised by the then home secretary to 35 years.
According to media reports of the case, Winchester Crown Court heard how handyman Stephenson killed husband and wife Joseph and Hilda Cleaver, their son Tom and family nurse Margaret Murphy at Burgate House in Hampshire after he and accomplices, brothers John and George Daly, went to the wealthy New Forest estate where he used to work to steal shotguns.
John Daly was also convicted of murdering Tom Cleaver’s wife Wendy, the court reports said.
In a statement on Thursday, Melissa Cleaver said: “We cannot express how relieved we are to learn that George Stephenson’s bid for parole has been refused.
“My mother endured a sadistic, brutal gang rape and indescribable torture before finally being strangled to death.
“My father, grandparents and Maggie were bound, gagged, doused in petrol and set alight, still alive and conscious.
“They lived for several minutes.
“My father, his charred flesh peeling from his body, had dragged himself into an adjacent bathroom in a vain attempt to escape.
“Our beautiful dog was clubbed with a pickaxe so violently that she had to be put down.”
The Parole Board is yet to confirm the ruling but is expected to publish its decision on Thursday.
