Children’s father tried to break into bedroom from outside to rescue them but was beaten back by flames
Children’s father tried to break into bedroom from outside to rescue them but was beaten back by flames
A woman and two children aged seven and four were killed in a fire in the early hours of Boxing Day after their father, a serving police officer, desperately tried to save them.
The officer smashed his way out of the stone cottage in the Cotswolds and tried to break into his children’s bedroom from the outside to rescue them but was beaten back by the flames.
His wife’s body has been recovered and the bodies of one of the children found in the mid-terrace cottage. Search and recovery experts are still looking for the body of the second child.
Gloucestershire police are not treating the fire as suspicious and say they believe it to have been a tragic accident. The family, who have not been named, are said to be popular and much loved in the Brimscombe Hill area of Stroud.
Speaking at the police headquarters in Gloucester, Det Supt Ian Fletcher said emergency services were called at 3am on Boxing Day to a “well-established” fire.
