Spalding shooting: Man brutally shot wife and daughter before turning gun on himself

An inquest into the death of a family in a Spalding leisure centre car park has heard that a man shot his wife and daughter before turning the gun on himself.

Claire Hart, 50, was shot in the chest and abdomen in the incident on Tuesday, July 19.

The hearing at Boston on Wednesday, July 27, was told that she was pronounced dead at the scene and had to be identified from a photograph.

Her daughter Charlotte, 19, a midwifery student at Northampton University, suffered shot gun wounds to the upper abdomen and died later from her injuries.

Lance Hart, 57, the husband of Claire and father of Charlotte, suffered gun wounds to the head described by pathologist Dr Michael Biggs in a preliminary post-mortem report as “self-inflicted”.

Mother and daughter Claire Hart, 50, and Charlotte Hart, 19 were shot in the chest and abdomen.

Detective Inspector Helen Wood from Lincolnshire Police, the senior investigating officer, told the inquest: “We received several emergency telephone calls reporting a shooting.

“Officers and ambulance personnel discovered one male deceased, one female deceased and one female requiring urgent medical attention. Unfortunately she also died.

“Witnesses reported the male deceased had a gun and he had shot the two females and turned the weapon on himself, firing it and killing himself immediately.

“The weapon used was identified as a single-barrelled shotgun and further investigation is going on to identify the provenance of that gun.

“Claire Hart was identified by one of my colleagues from a photograph. Due to the extreme weather conditions that day Claire was unidentifiable.”

Senior coroner for South Lincolnshire Paul Cooper told the hearing that he has asked police to look at three aspects of the shooting incident.

These are the source of the shotgun, medical evidence in relation to state of mind of Lance Hart and evidence about the marital relationship of Mr and Mrs Hart.

Lance Hart brutally shot wife Claire and daughter Charlotte and then turned the gun on himself.

Lincolnshire Police have previously confirmed that Mr Hart did not hold either a shotgun certificate or a firearms licence and the source of the gun involved is an active line of inquiry.

The Hart’s family home at Moulton, five miles from Spalding, had recently been sold.

The couple’s two adult sons Luke, 26, and Ryan, 25, were both away from the property at the time of the shootings.

The coroner adjourned this morning’s hearing for a full inquest to be held on a date to be arranged.

Claire Hart worked at the meat counter in a Morrisons supermarket in the nearby village of Pinchbeck.

Charlotte, described as “selfless” with “a future as bright as her smile”, had just completed the first year of a midwifery course at Northampton University and had returned home for the summer break.

Lance Hart worked at a builders’ merchants in Holbeach.

The family moved to Moulton from Cambridgeshire some years ago.