Children of Jason Corbett to deliver victim impact statements before sentencing of Molly and Thomas Martens

The children of Jason Corbett will take the stand to deliver their victim impact statements on the final day of hearings before Judge David Hall imposes sentences on Tom and Molly Martens for voluntary manslaughter.

The children had been given the option to have a member of the prosecution legal team read out their statements for them. Jack (19) and Sarah Corbett (17) had initially chosen this option. However, having heard the evidence presented over the first week of the hearing, during which their father was depicted as a domestic abuser who was jealous, controlling and coercive, and may have killed Jack and Sarah’s mother, Mags Corbett, the children decided to take the stand.

They have written emotive victim impact statements defending their father. These statements will also include revelations about Molly Martens, who entered their lives 18 months after their mother died. She answered an advertisement that Jason had placed online seeking a live-in au pair. The advertisement was placed with a reputable agency but Molly Martens contacted Jason privately, by email, and outlined her childcare experience, in particular her previous role as a foster parent. This, the court heard last week, was a fabrication.

The assistant district attorneys, who prosecuted the case on behalf of the State of North Carolina, have told the court that Molly Martens had a “complicated relationship with the truth” and lied frequently, including fabricating the existence of a dead sister, whom she claimed had died of Leukemia. She also told her bridesmaids that she knew Jason’s first wife and that when Mags had cancer, she begged Molly to raise her children, and “be a mother to my kids”.

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With Tom and Molly Martens pursuing the legal strategy of arguing that Jason killed his first wife, the children are determined to tell their side of the story.

A close source to the family said: “It’s been horrific for Jack and Sarah for the past week listening to their father being depicted like that, and then having to hear these claims that Mags died by strangulation. It’s a lot to ask of two teenagers to go into the witness box and stand in front of Tom and Molly Martens and speak their truth, but they are determined to do it and to let the judge know, from their own words, what really happened here.”

The case had been expected to conclude on Wednesday but may now spill over into Thursday as the judge had to adjourn Monday’s hearing early.