Firebomb killers are jailed
TWO MEN and a woman were jailed yesterday for a combined minimum of 98 years for killing four children by petrol bombing their home as they slept.
Victims Demi Pearson, 15, her brother Brandon, eight, and her sisters, Lacie, seven, and Lia, three, all perished in an act of mindless revenge.
Their mother Michelle Pearson was left in a coma for six months and only discovered her heartbreaking loss when she woke in April.
Zak Bolland, 23, his girlfriend Courtney Brierley, 20, and his friend David Worrall, 26, were filmed grinning with glee as they planned last December’s slaughter in Walkden, Salford.
Petrol
Manchester Crown Court heard the attack was provoked by a petty dispute between Bolland and the siblings’ older brother Kyle Pearson, 17.
Kyle, who was in the house at the time of the attack, was the only one of the children to survive.
The three killers shared a joke with shop staff before the attack last December 11 as they bought a jerry can and beer bottles.
Bolland and Worrall, fuelled by drink and drugs, then filled two bottles with petrol bought from a local garage, stuffing the tops with tissue paper as they prepared the attack.
At 5am they struck, smashing the kitchen window of Mrs Pearson’s home then throwing the two lit petrol bombs inside.
Bolland’s bottle exploded near the stairs, blocking the only exit to the ground floor and trapping the victims upstairs.
Within seconds flames engulfed the three- bedroom mid- terrace home. Their actual target, Kyle, fled through an upstairs window with a friend but his siblings were trapped.
Mrs Pearson, 36, was overheard screaming “Not the kids! Not my kids!” as rescuers battled to get to her and her children.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice William Davis said: “It is not necessary to describe the course of the fire. It was swift and it was deadly.
“Four children died a terrible death. Their mother has been grievously injured.” Feckless Bolland welled up in tears and his head dropped as he was given four life sentences, with a minimum of 40 years, after being convicted of four murders and three attempted murders.
Worrall, who did not even know the family he destroyed, was also given four life sentences with a minimum term of 37 years for four murders and three counts of attempted grievous bodily harm.
Brierley, convicted of four