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A coroner today ruled that a fire that caused the tragic deaths of four young children was caused by a discarded cigarette.
Siblings Riley Holt, eight, Keegan Unitt, six, Tilly Rose Unitt, four, and Olly Unitt, three, were killed in the fire.
Flames ripped through his home on Sycamore Drive in the Highfields area of Stafford on February 5 of last year.
The children’s parents, Natalie Unitt and Christopher Moulton, were initially arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter. But police later confirmed that no further action was being taken against them after a file was passed on to CPS.
A major investigation by the Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service found that the fire likely started in the master bedroom.
But in the investigation into today’s deaths, the couple questioned the experts’ conclusions.
They said they woke up that night to find the fire, which appeared to be on the landing.
Unitt said the first thing he noticed was a “heaviness” in his chest. “I still have nightmares about it,” he added.
When pressed to describe what happened, he said he couldn’t remember as he has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder ever since.
Moulton, who suffered severe burns to his hands, said he was unable to reach the four children, who were sleeping in other rooms.
Their youngest son, who was two years old at the time, survived the fire as he had been sleeping near his parents.
The couple said in the investigation that they had escaped through their bedroom window.
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But police and fire investigators noted there were discrepancies in the parents’ accounts, both with each other and with the evidence found at the scene.
Leigh Richards of the West Midlands Fire Service said she believed the former had started with a cigarette thrown on the bed. The couple admitted that they had both been smoking in bed, despite an earlier warning from social care services.
This then caused a ‘flashover’, with everything in the master bedroom going on. And the fire spread across the landing.
Mr. Richards suggested that Ms. Unitt had gone downstairs to get water to throw on the fire, but was unable to return to the bedrooms. He said he appeared to have escaped through a door below.
South Staffordshire Coroner Andrew Haigh described it as a tragedy. He said: “My hope is that the children died peacefully in their beds.”
He recorded a narrative conclusion, saying it was due to fumes from the fire caused by unquenched cigarettes.
The tragedy caused a torrent of pain in the local community, with vigils, processions and tributes in memory of the young people.
More to follow.
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