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North Wingfield fire: 'Missed opportunity' to raise alarm | |
(about 7 hours later) | |
There was a "missed opportunity" to raise the alarm during a house fire which killed two women and two children, a coroner has said. | |
Josie Leighton, 32, her two sons Tyler Green, nine, and Jordan Green, 12, and Claire James, 27, died in the fire in North Wingfield, Derbyshire in 2013. | Josie Leighton, 32, her two sons Tyler Green, nine, and Jordan Green, 12, and Claire James, 27, died in the fire in North Wingfield, Derbyshire in 2013. |
The inquest was told a neighbour heard a smoke alarm and went back to sleep. | |
But the coroner said there was nothing to suggest raising an early alarm would have made a "material difference". | |
Ms James's neighbour, Sarah Hempshall, said she was woken by noises at about 01:30 GMT on 20 November. | |
She told the inquest at Chesterfield Coroner's Court: "I thought they were cooking something at first and then I thought why are they cooking something? | |
"It is since then that I found out what that smell was." | |
Ms Hempshall woke again at about 03:00, but only called emergency services at about 05:00, when she found smoke in her own home. | |
The inquest also heard that seven-year-old Tia James, the daughter of Claire James, escaped the house and knocked for help at a neighbour's home. | |
James Newman, Assistant Coroner for Derbyshire, said: "From Tia's evidence she recalls going downstairs, grabbing a blanket and pillow and making her way outside, trying to rouse the neighbours, from which unfortunately she got no response." | |
Firefighters later found Tia in the back garden suffering from smoke inhalation and hypothermia. | |
'Plasticky smoke' | |
The girl told police that during the fire she recalled her mother saying: "Let's get everybody downstairs." | |
She was able to get out because she was smaller than the others, meaning she was below the smoke, the hearing was told. | |
Another neighbour, Ian Shaw, said he heard a girl shouting "Mum" at about 01:30 GMT when he went to take his dog outside. | |
He said he felt guilty and apologised for not going to have a look. | |
The women and two boys died from inhaling "plasticky thick dense smoke" in the fire, which was caused by faulty electrical wiring. | |
The coroner concluded the deaths were accidental. |
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