Day 21 of the Philpott fire deaths trial resumed at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday, where Mick Philpott took the stand.
The 56-year-old, his wife, Mairead Philpott, 31, and family friend Paul Mosley, 46, all deny the manslaughter of six Philpott children in a house fire in Allenton, Derby, last May.Day 21: The defence team began its case.
The trial is adjourned until Thursday morning. 4.25pm Asked about being charged with six counts of murder, he tells the courtroom: "I had been charged with something that was impossible.
"Impossible for me and my wife to murder our own children. They are my life, my heart, they are everything to me."4.20pm Asked in court about a secret police recording where he is heard saying: "Are we sticking to the story?", Philpott says he was referring to their sex life and drug use and whether they were going to keep that from police. 4.15pm Philpott tells the jury that he and his wife would go dogging in Allestree once a month. The court hears, one time, Mairead had sex with another man and became pregnant.
Philpott told the court: "She had an abortion."4.05pm Philpott said he, Mairead and Mosley had sex "three or four times" together after the fire. He said: "Once was at Allestree Park in the minibus.
"Sex was one way of dealing with it (the fire). It was a massive way of dealing with it. Cannabis was too but I am ashamed about what happened."3.50pm Philpott tells the jury it was his idea to be put up in the Premier Inn after the fire. He said: "I told the police the only place I wanted to be was the Royal Derby so I could see the children.
"We were going over every night to see them."3.45pm The court hears from Philpott how he can barely remember getting from Victory Road to the hospital. He said: "I don't even remember if it was with Mairead.
"The next thing I remember is hearing Bryan Mosley's voice at the hospital."
Mr Orchard asked how he was feeling at this point. Philpott replied: "I wanted to die. I wanted my kids, I was all over the place."3.40pm Philpott tells the jury he thinks he sustained an injury, a graze to his ribs, when he banged against a concrete post as he "lunged forward" to try to get to his daughter Jade as he saw her being brought out of the house by firefighters. 3.15pm The case is adjourned for a 15-minute break. 3.05pm Philpott collapses in the dock - sobbing and slumping forward out of sight - as the court hears the 999 call again. 3pm Philpott tells the court how he climbed a ladder to one of the upstairs bedroom windows.
He said: "I was screaming for my daughter, I tried to punch the window but it would not break. I went back down the ladder and grabbed one of my children's tennis rackets.
"I went back up and hit the window but I don't think I could break it. My wife passed me a socket thing and smashed the window. The hole was as big as my head, thick smoke came out.
Mr Orchard asked: "Did the smoke affect you?"
Philpott replied: "It made me cough but that did not bother me. I just wanted to get my babies."2.50pm Philpott fights back tears in the witness box as he describes to the jury how he was woken by the fire alarm.
He said: "I turned around to Mairead, she was sat up. We went out to the conservatory and into the kitchen.
"I could see a bright, orange light coming from the living room. I felt warm, I felt heat, I could hear a crackling.
"I opened the door to the lounge and went in about four steps. Thick, black smoke was coming from the hallway."
Mr Orchard asks Philpott: "What was your first thought when you realised there was a fire?"
Philpott replied: "My kids, my kids straight away." 2.40pm Philpott also admits to the court there was sexual activity between the three defendants shortly after midnight.
He said: "I feel totally ashamed, it is something we have talked about but something we have tried not to talk about because of my older children. Because it is not nice when the papers print it."2.30pm Philpott admits on the evening of May 10 that he, his wife and Adam Taylor went out to buy cannabis.
He said: "It was Shakey's (Mosley's) weed, not mine. Shakey stayed at our house in the conservatory."
Philpott told the court neither he nor his wife smoked cannabis that night but admitted to smoking it more after the fire. 2.20pm Philpott tells the jury he felt "confident" of winning the court case against Ms Willis.
He said: "Getting some contact with my children was my main priority."2.15pm The case is about to resume following the lunch break. Questions are to be about the day of the fire.
Video of a custodial police van, believed to be carrying Mick Philpott, as it arrived at Nottingham Crown Court this morning.
The trial is adjourned for lunch. 1pm Philpott said he was with Lisa Willis and all the children at Markeaton Park when he was was served with court papers. He said he was upset about a non-molestation order because she implied "he knocked her about on a regular basis".
Philpott told the court that he had hit her once because "she hit my princess Jade." 12.25pm Philpott said that on April 6, on the way to a darts event, he had told Sarah Osborne that he, his wife and his children had had death threats.
He also said that on this trip he had a call from his wife saying she had had an "another anonymous call".
Philpott told the court that they had had numerous calls from a withheld number.
Philpott denied saying anything about `threats of burning' to anyone on the minibus trip.
"I never mentioned fire, petrol, burning or anything to anyone," he said.11.40am The case is adjourned for a short while.11.35am Philpott was asked about his relationship with Amanda (the sister of Lisa Willis) and Ian Cousins. He told the court: "Amanda is a vindictive cow; that's not my view that is quite a lot of people's view. Ian was infatuated with Lisa.
"Originally I asked Lisa if Ian was the father of her eldest child. He started looking like Ian. After a few months Lisa told me and Mairead that Ian was his dad." 11.25am Philpott told the court that he didn't appreciate how much Ms Willis leaving the house affected his wife.
"Mairead is a very strong lady, she can hide her feelings better than I can.
"I had no idea she would have tried that (a suicide attempt). I was in shock. I'd had five children taken from me, I never expected my wife to be nearly taken from me as well."11.10am Mr Orchard asked Philpott how Ms Willis' departure from the family home affected the remaining children. He said: "Because they know how upset I was, my children were the same especially Jade because she was the only girl left. It really hurt her, it crippled her. It was not the same, it was horrible." 10.50am Philpott has told the court that his former mistress Lisa Willis was "controlling". He said: "She pushed me away from my dear wife."
He added: "Lisa looked after the children for 30 minutes in the evening and at school holidays but I am not going to say she was a bad mother because she was not, but Mairead was the sole carer of the children."
Mr Orchard has asked if Philpott had any idea Ms Willis was leaving. He said: "None whatsoever. At that particular time I thought me and Lisa had this bond.
"I treated her like a queen. It was a well-known fact that Lisa wanted me to herself."
On the day Ms Willis left, Philpott said he woke up at noon and walked into the house from the caravan.
He told the court: "My wife said `Lisa has gone swimming with the kids'. I thought she meant all the kids but Mairead said `no, just her kids'. It was unusual."10.35am Anthony Orchard asked Mick Philpott: "Did you set the fire?"
Philpott said: "No."
Philpott has already broken down in the stand.
Asked what kind of mother Mairead was, Philpott answered: "The best" and then started crying.
Philpott said he was "totally ashamed" of his appearances on TV programme Jeremy Kyle and a 2007 documentary called Ann Widdecombe Versus the Benefits Culture in which Widdecombe lived with him for a week and tried to get him to change his lifestyle.10.30am Mick Philpott is in a grey suit and cream shirt. Mairead is wearing a blue cardigan and Mosely is wearing a black coat.
The prosecution, whose case closed on Monday when the court last sat, allege that the trio were involved in a "plan that went horribly wrong" and resulted in the deaths of the Philpotts' six children.
Jade Philpott, 10, and her brothers, Duwayne, 13, John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six and Jayden, five, all died after the blaze at their home in Victory Road.
The trial is in its fifth week and the evidence for the defence started with Philpott in the stand at 10.15am.
Prosecutors claim he is the "prime mover" in a plan to frame his former mistress, Lisa Willis.
She walked out with her five children three months before the blaze.
*THE PHILPOTT TRIAL: Visit our Philpott trial channel here for all related stories in the fire death case.