Woman who survived fire started by ex-partner says she ‘couldn’t save’ family

A woman tearfully described how she “couldn’t save” her sister and her three children as they were killed in a “catastrophic” house fire started by her former partner.

Prosecutors say Sharaz Ali was “motivated by jealousy and fuelled by drink and drugs” when he set fire to the home of Bryonie Gawith and her three small children in the early hours of August 21 last year, killing all four.

Ali is accused of going to the house to “take revenge” on his former partner – Bryonie’s sister Antonia Gawith – who was staying there after ending their “abusive” seven-year relationship earlier that month.

On Thursday, Doncaster Crown Court jurors saw Antonia’s video interview with police, where she sobbed as she described trying to get help for her sister, nieces and nephew as the house became engulfed in flames while they were trapped inside.

She said she had been in Bryonie’s bedroom after finishing her shift at Tesco and Ali had been messaging her, accusing her of being with another man.

Antonia said her sister told her to ignore him and started to fall asleep.

“I never thought he’d come and do that. Why would he do that?” she said to officers.

Antonia said she heard the house’s ring doorbell bleep and started walking downstairs.

“I started walking downstairs and the door was kicked through and Sharaz and another man were stood there, but the man that kicked the door ran straight off,” she told police.

“(Ali) started pouring petrol on me. I was saying ‘please don’t, I love you, I’ll come back, don’t do this’.”

She told police: “I was begging, I would say anything just so he wouldn’t do it.”

She said Ali seemed “angry” and was shouting, but that she could not remember anything he had said, adding: “He just seemed so different … he just didn’t seem himself at all, it was just crazy.”

Antonia described trying to get the petrol and a lighter out of Ali’s hands before running out of the house, thinking he would follow her.

“I was screaming for help but he didn’t follow me. I ran back to the house and as I ran back my sister’s kicked him down the stairs and then I tried to get him out.

“I pulled the petrol off him and tried to get him out, and then he hit the lighter.

“I seen him set on fire, and all the stairs, and my sister.”

Antonia said the front door then swung shut, and when she managed to open it there was “fire everywhere”.

“I was scared to go in because I thought I would just burn,” she said.

Antonia told police she ran round to the back door but it was jammed, and she started kicking it while “screaming and shouting” for her sister to get out.

She said Bryonie, who had rung 999 while coming down the stairs, threw her phone out of the window.

She told officers she picked it up and started “shouting down the phone telling them to send everybody – the police, ambulance, fire brigade”.

“I was just screaming, trying to get back in the house and I couldn’t get in. I couldn’t save them,” she said tearfully.

Antonia told officers that police arrived and broke through the door, pulling Ali out, but that by the time the fire brigade arrived it was too late to save Bryonie and the children.

She described trying to get upstairs but being kept away as she was still covered in petrol.

“They said it wasn’t safe. I was just begging them all and screaming and crying, and I just wanted to save them and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything.

“They wouldn’t let me go up – I just wanted to be with her. I was covered in petrol, so they were trying to keep me back.”

Antonia said Ali was “quite controlling” and violent during their relationship, and that her sister was the one person she could talk to after losing many of her friends.

She said: “He used to go out on benders and get drunk and not come home, I was scared to leave him.

“I was just so scared of him. I don’t know why I stayed with him. He promised me he’d stop drinking and wouldn’t take drugs but he was coming back most days drunk and on drugs.”

She said Bryonie gave her the strength to end the relationship with Ali when the two sisters were on holiday, weeks before the fire.

Antonia told police: “I felt like I had the confidence and the support to finally leave him.

“The other day I said ‘Should I just go back?’ and she (Bryonie) said: ‘Don’t be stupid, you’re finally free of him’.”

Giving evidence in court, Antonia said Ali blamed Bryonie for her deciding to leave him.

She was asked by prosecutor David Brooke KC about a message Ali had sent her in the days before the fire which said: “I’ll be gone in two days. Remember your so-called friend will not look at you again in two days and that I promise.”

She said she understood that to be a threat to her but that he had never explained what he meant.

Antonia was asked about another message from Ali which said: “I know who has caused this in my life, whether they meant to or not.

“Better start praying cos now I’m going to get involved in her life and everyone is going to feel it. I promise you one thing, they’re going to regret it.”

Antonia said: “I think it must have been about my sister because I was staying with her… Just because I’d told her everything and she knew everything.

“She was always there for me so obviously he blamed her for me taking that decision to leave him.”

Bryonie, 29, and her children Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five, and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle, died in the blaze.

Ali, 40, of no fixed address, and Calum Sunderland, 26, of Calton Street, Keighley, are charged with murdering Bryonie and the three children, and attempting to murder Antonia.

Mohammed Shabir, 45, who had been due to go on trial with them, died of a heart attack last month after collapsing in prison.

Prosecutors say Shabir drove to and from the house while Sunderland kicked the door in.

Ali and Sunderland deny the charges and the trial continues.