Abuse call link to Buxton fatal fire

DETECTIVES were last night investigating whether a blaze that killed two young children was linked to a call to police by their mother about antisocial behaviour just an hour earlier.

A five-year-old girl and two-year-old boy died as the suspicious fire ripped through the end-terrace house in Buxton, Derbyshire.

Their mother, named locally as Fiona Adams, 23, escaped from the property with her eight-month-old baby by jumping out of a bedroom window on to a trampoline in the garden.

She was said to be in a "comfortable and stable" condition in a specialist burns unit at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester.

The condition of the baby boy, who is at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, was not known.

The two other children, named as Niamh and Cayden, died in the blaze after becoming trapped in the house.

A 17-year-old youth was arrested yesterday in connection with the fire, police said. Assistant Chief Constable Steve Cotterill said police were called to the house in Edale Way about an hour before the fire broke out just before midnight last night.

He said Adams had called Derbyshire Constabulary's non-emergency number to report noise and nuisance in the garden. Officers went to the house, spoke to her and searched the area, but nothing was found.

About an hour later emergency services were called to the property after the blaze broke out. Cotterill said that, because of the earlier contact with the force, the Independent Police Complaints Commission had been informed.

He said: "We are now looking for any possibility there may be a connection to the first call with the fire that took place an hour later."