Assaulted, bitten by an animal and bangs in the night... strange final hours of flat fire victim
AN inquest has heard about the unusual and tragic final hours of a Derbyshire man who died after a fire in his flat.
Peter Jeffries, 51, who was single and unemployed, died on Saturday, June 22, 2019, at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham following the blaze at his home in Lynden Avenue, Long Eaton.
In the hours prior to his being discovered, Mr Jeffries had bought a bottle of vodka, got drunk, been attacked and also bitten by an animal, likely to have been a dog.
A 54-year-old woman and a 51-year-old man were initially arrested on suspicion of his death but the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence to charge them.
Assistant coroner Sophie Lomas ruled at Derby Coroner’s Court on Friday Mr Jeffries had started the fatal fire but had been the victim of an assault in his flat hours earlier by an unknown assailant.
The inquest was also told about the final movements of Mr Jeffries on the day before his death.
Detective Constable Denise Sandall, who works with the major crimes unit at St Mary’s Wharf Police Station in Derby, said Peter Jeffries had been visiting friends in Long Eaton. She said CCTV seen by police also showed Mr Jeffries buying a bottle of vodka. He was later spotted just after 9pm on the evening of Friday, June 21, stood in the road “gesturing at traffic and stumbling”.
A police incident was reported at around 10pm which Mr Jeffries was identified as being involved in.
Witnesses reported seeing him lying on the pavement near the Tappers Harker pub in Main Street, Long Eaton, with a bicycle next to him. He was described as swearing and yelling that he would fight anyone and shoot anyone although he was never found with a firearm.
When police attended at 10.30pm, they described Mr Jeffries as “intoxicated and sweating profusely”. He ran off and abandoned his bicycle at the junction of Collingwood Road and Lynden Avenue.
A witness who saw him near the pub said he had a graze on his hand which was bleeding. Blood was later found on his bicycle.
Mr Jeffries then visited the address of one of the suspects who was initially arrested on suspicion of murdering him, with the other initial suspect being present as well.
At 10.40pm, one of the initial suspects phoned a friend who Mr Jeffries had visited earlier in the day to ask what he had been drinking and if he had taken anything. Det Con Sandall told the inquest Mr Jeffries spent about half an hour at this address.
At around midnight, a neighbour of Mr Jeffries reported being awoken by two loud bangs and a panicked male voice saying it was “Pete from next door”. The neighbour didn’t answer as she said this incident had never happened before.
There were further reports from neighbours of noises including banging and the moving of furniture at around 2am from the direction of Mr Jeffries’ flat, followed by the sound of a smoke alarm and a dog barking – although the fire didn’t start until hours later.
The inquest also heard from Dean Gazzard, of Derbyshire Fire and Rescue, who described first arriving on the scene of the fire. He said the service received the first and only call about the fire at 5.35am on Saturday, June 22, and police were informed.
Three fire service vehicles arrived but crews found the front door locked. One firefighter tried to get in through the bathroom window which, due to the heat of the fire, “fell apart and completely came off in his hand”.
Firefighters eventually forced their way in through the front door where they found the flat ablaze and Mr Jeffries unconscious in the kitchen.
He was handed over to the ambulance service and taken to the QMC, where he was pronounced dead at 3.44pm that afternoon.
In the flat, police said a knife drawer in the kitchen had been pulled out and there were drops of blood on knives that had fallen on the floor.
The fire service found the fire started on the landing of the first floor of the flat.
A post-mortem examination into the death of Mr Jeffries, carried out by Dr Stuart Hamilton at Royal Derby Hospital, found he had burns all over his body. It also found a number of wounds, including on the back of his legs and hands, in keeping with a “defensive action”.
The examination also discovered a wound on his leg that appeared to be the result of an animal bite.
Detective Sandall said police concluded that Mr Jeffries was the victim of an assault on the ground floor of his flat and that spots of blood and bloody handprints had been seen on the walls and on the walls of the staircase. Police concluded the wounds could not have been selfinflicted and that the pattern of the blood seemed to suggest Mr Jeffries had made his way up the stairs to the first floor of his flat.
The post-mortem concluded, however, none of these wounds were life-threatening and it was the subsequent fire that caused his death as a result of smoke inhalation and burns.
Mr Gazzard described the property as “quite untidy” with clothing strewn across different rooms and magazines and papers all over.
Detective Sandall said when police arrived they found signs of “disarray” in the living room including broken belongings, a smashed TV and items on sofas and chairs.
An unusual blue Halloween mask was also found in the flat containing the DNA of Mr Jeffries.
The family of Mr Jeffries told police such behaviour was unusual given he usually kept his flat “neat and tidy to the point of OCD”, including regularly lining up tins in his cupboards.
Det Con Sandall told the inquest Mr Jeffries had a history of mental health problems, including an incident months before his death in April 2019 when he phoned police to say he wanted to kill himself. He also had an alcohol addiction reported as early as 2000 which was “accelerated” by the death of his father.
Following a “process of elimination” in which common causes such as cooking and electrics were excluded, the fire service concluded that the most probable cause of the fire was the “deliberate ignition of combustible materials by persons unknown”.
Det Con Sandall added that two lighters had been found in the property, both of which contained only the DNA of Mr Jeffries.