Axe killer granddad jailed for life

SYDNEY - A 70-year-old man who murdered his wife and two grandchildren and attempted to kill his daughter with an axe will spend the rest of his life in jail after being sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court today.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to two life sentences for the murders of his grandchildren, at least 15 years for his wife's murder and at least 12 years for the attempted murder of his daughter.

The daughter found the bodies of her children and her mother in the family home at Cowra, in NSW's central west, on June 30 last year.

Justice Lucy McCallum said the man had shown no remorse to the court, his daughter or the father of the children and had offered no explanation for his actions.

"In my view, there is little in the offender's subjective circumstances to mitigate his extreme culpability," she told the Sydney court on Friday.

"The offender killed his young grandchildren when they had been entrusted to his care.

"He intended to kill them and planned their murders with grim attention.

"He killed the children knowing that he had already killed the one person who might have come to their defence that night."

- AAP