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Police search for relatives of fire victims
Inquest into three deaths adjourned
INQUESTS into the deaths of three people in a Holloway blaze two weeks ago have been adjourned while police try to discover more about the victims.
The inquests into the deaths of Richard Blackburn, 63, Patricia Emberson, 53, and John Underwood, 40, opened on Friday at St Pancras Coroner’s Court. They have been adjourned until May or later.
The three victims died in a blaze that engulfed a three-storey Victorian house in Penn Road.
Detectives believe the fire was caused by a lit cigarette setting furnishings alight in a bedroom, where Mr Underwood and Mr Blackburn were both discovered.
Witnesses said the blaze started in a ground-floor flat about midnight and swept through the two upper floors before being extinguished at 5am.
Coroner’s officers have been unable to discover much about Mr Underwood, who was dead when pulled from the fire, or Ms Emberson, who died later in hospital. They have not managed to trace any family.
Officials have been in contact with the family of Mr Blackburn, the owner of the block who died in hospital days after the fire.
Veteran actor David Killick, who starred in A Touch of Frost on television and the film History Boys, narrowly escaped the blaze after he smelled smoke while reading in a basement flat at the block around midnight.
A post-mortem into the death of Mr Underwood, from Regent’s Park, ruled that he died from smoke inhalation.
Pathologists gave the cause of death for Ms Emberson as carbon monoxide inhalation from fire fumes.
Mr Blackburn was transferred from Whittington Hospital in Archway to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where he died two days later. According to pathologists, he died from “severe” burns and smoke fumes.
This week, neighbours described Mr Underwood as a “friendly, chatty guy”. A neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: “He was a nice guy. Sometimes I left food outside his door because I worried that he didn’t eat. I was shocked to hear he had died.” |
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