Mum relives tragedy of boys’ deaths each night

Company director Bains worked for the now-defunct property management company Prime Property Estates (Yorkshire) (PPE), which maintained around 140 homes in the Huddersfield area on behalf of private landlords for a 10% cut of the rent.

He said that the three-bedroom house did have fire alarms and maintained this claim during the trial.

But Leeds Crown Court previously heard how the boys’ mother Emma Taylor asked him to install fire alarms in the house ‘time after time’ and it was an ‘eminently’ avoidable tragedy.

The public gallery was packed with family members, including the boys’ parents, for a sentencing hearing which will conclude today.

In an emotional victim personal statement read to the court, Ms Taylor, who had tried to save the boys but was overcome with smoke, said her life has been ‘turned upside down.’

She said that she has not had a solid’s night sleep since the fire and she wakes up in the middle of the night to her boys crying, but they are not there and she relives the moment when she could not get to them ‘over and over.’

She said that her former house held too many memories and said she’s had to move out of the area.

Prosecutor Allan Compton previously said that tests conducted by investigators showed that Ms Taylor would have had five minutes to rescue her two boys if an alarm had been fitted.

Dad Jamie Casey said that the couple’s older son Finley, who escaped the fire with his mum, was ‘best friends’ with his brothers and is ‘heartbroken.’

He said: “How do you explain to an eightyear-old that they’re not coming home?”

Bains admitted his company was understaffed and said: “We were struggling to keep up with the repairs on the bad properties, to be honest with you.”

Mr Compton described the defendant’s actions as ‘inexcusable’ and said that if Bains was struggling he could have contacted West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) or the council for help to fit smoke alarms.

Tyrone Smith QC, mitigating, said that his client had done other work to the property and PPE has now been sold and renamed.

After Mr Justice Males said that Bains could get up to 10% credit for his guilty plea, Mr Smith said that if the judge is going to impose a prison sentence he should consider suspending it.

The judge retired to consider the verdict overnight. Bains will be sentenced at 10.30am today.

New laws came into force in October 2015 which meant it was mandatory for smoke alarms to be fitted on all floors of rented properties.

The West Yorkshire fire service had previously said they believed this would be the first prosecution of this nature in the country since the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 were introduced.