Leanna's Story

Mel Smith went out drinking before returning home shortly before 9pm. She picked up a takeaway of three starters for herself and then she went to bed where Clarkson was already sleeping. 50 minutes after Smith returned home at 9.50, a neighbour Joe Shelley saw flames in her flat. He heard Leanna desperately shouting, we can't get out. Other witnesses reported that while the fire raged, Smith was sitting on the curb with a blanket covering her,. The owner of the flat, Jay Liprott, was one of the first on the scene but he had to be rescued by colleagues. Paramedic John Owen said: 'There were loads of people on the street with black, acrid