'You backed the wrong daughter' judge tells parents of attempted murderer Cathy Bartlett

It was the simple message to Frances and Michael Bartlett from a judge who said Cathy Bartlett had manipulated them - and it had cost them a relationship with their eldest child Rachael.

Judge Jane Miller QC told Bartlett as she sat in the dock sobbing: “I feel sorry for your parents. They have been supporting the wrong daughter.

“It is Rachael who deserves their compassion not you and I hope they will realise their injustice.”

Judge Miller added that she hoped in time Rachael would find the strength to forgive her parents but told Bartlett she had ruined their relationship and torn the family apart.

Sentencing Bartlett, she told her that she would no longer have the chance to “exploit” Rachael while behind bars.

Describing Rachael’s initial disbelief that Bartlett could possibly be responsible for starting the blazes, She said: “who could think that of a sister they loved so much?”

Cathy Bartlett

She told Bartlett that she had “engineered” the events leading to the fire on the morning after Easter Monday, ploughing Rachael with booze and sleeping tablets so she would be “burned alive”.

Describing her as “manipulative” Judge Miller said Bartlett had “mounted dishonesty on dishonesty” and had been “completely ruthless” in taking as much money as she could from her sister and her father, from whom she had also stolen more than £40,000.

She handed Bartlett 25 years for the attempted murder of her sister, plus two years for every count of fraud and theft to run concurrently.