A MUM whose husband killed their three children before leaping off an 80ft cliff has spoken for the first time to say society “failed” her family and the tragic deaths were a “wake-up call”.

Ruth Fuller, from Milkwall in Gloucestershire, felt “enough rage to rip worlds apart" when runaway husband Ceri killed their son and two young daughters.

University graduate Ceri, 35, murdered Samuel, 12, Rebecca, eight, and seven-year-old Charlotte at a beauty spot in July 2012 and then jumped off a cliff.

The children suffered severe neck wounds believed to have been inflicted with a hunting knife.

An inquest found Samuel died from the effects of the single wound to his neck, Rebecca had been stabbed five times in the chest, and her sister had suffered four chest wounds.

A bloodstained 6.5in hunting knife owned by Mr Fuller, and bearing his fingerprint, was found wedged into a mound of rocks near the bodies of his children.

Ruth said her husband was “very, very ill” but did not seek help because society encourages "maladjusted" people to hide their problems instead of seeking support.

After six years of soul-searching, she said she’d come to the conclusion "society really, really failed my children".

She said: "If their brutal murder at the hands of their deeply troubled father isn't the wake up call to us all that it really needs to be, we didn't deserve their beautiful souls in this world."

Ruth did not defend her estranged husband, who left their home with the children shortly after the couple agreed to split up.

She had announced she had developed feelings for her university lecturer and was leaving the marriage.

Alarm bells started ringing when Ceri failed to turn up for work as a production supervisor at a paper mill and the kids missed school.

Ruth has now detailed the harrowing ordeal in the hope it prevents a similar tragedy happening ever again.

She said: "Society did not encourage Ceri Fuller to be honest about what was going on with him and reach out for help, it encouraged him to feel fear and shame and hide his problems rather than risk persecution for them.

"He was very, very ill and society was sending a clear message that he would be hated and punished for that, not helped."

An inquest into the four deaths in 2013 heard Ceri was a reserved and softly-spoken family man who went walking in the country with colleagues.

But the inquest also heard he could be possessive with Ruth, a childhood friend who became his partner when they were 21 and who had recently started an Open University course.

They had been in a relationship for 15 years.

Trying to come to terms with the unspeakable horror of her children’s deaths, Ruth said: "I became a very dark thing indeed.

"I couldn't take my rage out on him and it wouldn't have been enough if I could.

"It felt like rage enough to rip worlds apart and the truth is that I wanted to. I was honest about all the darkness inside of me and I was helped."

The artist said she was helped by people who understood the hell she was going through but said society “failed” Ceri and those around him.

She called for better access to mental health support and open forums for discussion where people can talk about the difficulties they face.

She said: "I'm not writing this in Ceri's defence (he has no loyalty from me) but in defence of those we have not yet failed and don't have to because we have all the tools to help.

"In the defence of children at risk from maladjusted people who are in hiding because we would hate them rather than help them; in defence of the far better society that we can be.

"I'm writing this for my children who would still be here with me now if we were a society that helped people like Ceri instead of hating."