Father who 'stabbed wife and daughters to death before hanging himself researched how to cut someone's throat beforehand'

A father who stabbed his wife and daughters to death before hanging himself had researched how to cut someone's throat beforehand, an inquest has heard.

The bodies of Jitendra Lad, 49, his wife, Dukshaben, 44, and their daughters, Trisha, 19, and Nisha, 16, were found at their four-bed detached home in Clayton, Bradford, last October in what a coroner described as a "scene of unimaginable horror".

Mr Lad was found hanging from the loft hatch and the other members of the family had all been stabbed in their beds with a scuba-diving knife.

A coroner was told how the daughters and their mother were probably killed in the early hours of the morning of Saturday, October 25 but Mr Lad was spotted by a number of people over that weekend and probably killed himself on the Monday afternoon, two days later.

The hearing was told how Mr Lad had no medical history of mental illness and relatives and friends said they appeared to be a normal, loving family.

But Detective Sergeant Duncan Jackson told the hearing in Bradford how Mr Lad had accessed the internet on his phone in the weeks before his death.

Det Sgt Jackson said the searches indicated he had researched depression and, just days before the tragedy, he had made searches "related to how to cut someone's throat and executions".

The officer also told the hearing how Mr Lad had been stressed at work as an IT manager, feeling he had been overpromoted, and also how he had told a woman on holiday two months before his death about how unhappy he was with his life and imminently turning 50.

But Bradford Coroner Martin Fleming said it was "impossible to reconcile" what Mr Lad did with what he knew about him.

Recording a verdict of suicide on Mr Lad and unlawfully killing on the other members of his family, Mr Fleming said: "We will never know for sure what was going through Jitendra's mind at that time."