A man has been found guilty of murdering his nextdoor neighbour and her two young children by pouring petrol through their letterbox and setting fire to their flat while they were asleep.
Jamie Barrow, 33, admitted starting the fire in November last year which killed Fatoumatta Hydara, 28, and her daughters, Fatimah Drammeh, three, and Naeemah Drammeh, one.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denied murder and one count of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered, claiming he did not know the family were at home. After a three-week trial at Nottingham crown court he was found guilty of the latter charges.
The court heard Barrow had a history of starting fires to relieve mental distress and claimed to find them “cathartic”.
On 22 November last year he drank at least eight cans of beer before pouring petrol through the door of his neighbour’s first-floor flat in Clifton, Nottingham, and setting fire to it, the court heard.
The jury were told he watched the fire take hold before walking away and taking his dog out, later joining concerned neighbours gathered outside the building and asking a council housing officer if he could be relocated if his flat was affected by smoke damage.
Hydara and her children were carried from the burning flat by firefighters and all three died from smoke inhalation.
They had been due to move to the US to join Hydara’s husband and the children’s father, Aboubacarr Drammeh, 40, who was working there, and the family were near the end of a three-year visa application process.
Drammeh flew back to the UK after the fire and viewed their bodies in the hospital mortuary on his 40th birthday. “I had to go in there and see the bodies,” he said. “That was just so hard.”
Hydara’s uncle Dawda Dibba, 44, said she was “a bubbly and nice person and had a really good sense of humour”.
“The two children will be greatly missed,” he said. “As a family, this has broken us. You can’t recover from this.”
