Come across this by accident on the Lynn News website A BRAVE Hunstanton family were lucky to escape with their lives on Valentine’s Day after an arsonist set fire to their home in the middle of the night.
Steven Davies (23), his wife Shirley (40), and her daughter Sherilyn Atkins (15), of 22 Park Road, battled flames and toxic smoke with buckets of water after being woken just after 2.30am by heat and fumes. Also asleep was the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Kira.
An arsonist had pushed something through the letter box and fire had spread to the ceiling and walls. Mrs Davies believes the attack could be linked to a vendetta against her son.
Mrs Davies said: “I woke up and the heat struck me first. Then I realised I couldn’t see properly and the house was full of thick black smoke.
“I screamed out ‘The house is on fire!’ and woke everybody up. It was very frightening.
“Luckily we were able to put the fire out ourselves. We all ran around in a panic and got water out of the kitchen to throw over the flames.”
Sherilyn helped fight the fire, which destroyed the telephone landline. The fire brigade was called at 3am using a mobile phone.
“If I hadn’t woke up we would probably be dead now. We are all very shook up,” said Mrs Davies.
About two years ago Mrs Davies’ son, Barry Loose, was left badly beaten when a man attacked him with a crowbar while he was on his way to work. The family believe the same man attacked Mr Loose’s new Vauxhall Corsa six months ago, causing 2,000 damage. Mr Loose now lives in Lincoln.
Sherilyn said: “We naturally assume it’s the same man. We don’t know anybody else that would do this to us.”
Mrs Davies added: “There was tissue hanging out the front of the letter box. Obviously somebody had put something onto the tissue and rolled it through, so it would set fire to the carpet.”
DC Dave Day,of Hunstanton police, ruled out any link with the spate of arson attacks that plagued the town in September.
He said: “At the moment we are considering this as a serious arson attack on the family, but we are not connecting it with the incidents last year.”
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