BBC Racing commentator John Hunt has spoken publicly for the first time since the murders of his wife, Carol, and daughters Hannah and Louise by Kyle Clifford.

Hunt and his daughter Amy spoke of their grief in an interview with the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire.

Clifford, the former boyfriend of Louise Hunt, stabbed Carol Hunt, 61, to death at the Hunts’ home in Bushey, Hertfordshire on July 9 last year. 

Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, were fatally injured by crossbow bolts and Clifford was also found guilty of raping Louise when he was given a whole-life sentence for his crimes in March.

“From the moment I wake up, I say good morning to each of them,” said John Hunt. “I talk to them every day.

“I sometimes say out loud to Hannah and Louise ‘Look, girls, sorry, I can't be with you. I'm with your mum at the moment’. Then as I close my eyes I chat to them as well.”

Amy Hunt said: “You can only see me and Dad, and that's the sadness of our lives. I wish you could see them and know them, because the world is a much emptier place without them. 

“When you love someone so much, and they love you so much, death can't take that away and you have to cling on to that. I think that's something anyone who's experienced grief will relate to.”

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John Hunt commentated on the Gold Cup for BBC Radio 5 Live Sport at the Cheltenham Festival in March just three days after delivering a powerful impact statement at the sentencing hearing of Clifford.

Hunt told Clifford in his statement he was “callous, cowardly and vindictive” and that hell would “roll out the red carpet” for what he did, but stressed in his interview with Derbyshire that there were no signs of someone who was a regular in their family home going on to commit rape and triple murder.

“He was in the house an awful lot in that 18 months," said John Hunt. "I never heard raised voices once. There were no obvious alarms that anything was wrong.” 

Amy Hunt added: “Did we have any indication that this man was capable of stabbing my mother, tying Louise up, raping Louise, shooting Louise and shooting Hannah. Absolutely not, absolutely not.”

The full interview Standing Strong: The John and Amy Hunt interview with Victoria Derbyshire airs on BBC1 and the iPlayer at 9pm on Thursday.