MUM LAY DYING IN BURNING VEHICLE
Flames from a car that was torched while a mum lay dying inside reached 30 ft into the air, a jury heard. Stephen Unwin and William McFall “disposed of” Quyen Ngoc Nguyen, who they had held captive and raped at a house, by setting fire to her Audi A4 with her “incapacitated” and wrapped in a sheet inside, it was alleged.
Flames from a car that was torched while a mum lay dying inside reached 30ft into the air, jurors have heard.
Stephen Unwin and William McFall “disposed of ” Quyen Ngoc Nguyen, who they had held captive and raped at a house, by setting fire to her Audi A4 with her “incapacitated” and wrapped in a sheet inside.
Newcastle Crown Court heard during her “horror” ordeal, the 28-year-old nail salon worker, who was known as Anna, had been ordered to hand over her bank details while being subjected to physical and sexual violence.
Miss Nguyen’s remains, which could only be identified by dental records, were found when emergency services were called to a dirt track at Success Road, in Shiney Row, last August.
The court heard residents had reported hearing “explosions” in an area near allotments. One nearby neighbour said: “A huge, dark grey smoke, in a plume, came from the direction of the allotments, about 30ft in height.”
Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service watch manager James Ferguson found Quyen’s badly-burned body when his crew attended to put out the car blaze.
He said car fires can reach temperatures of 1000C degrees and added in his statement, which has been read to the jury, that the crew had started to extinguish the blaze when he made the grim find.
He said: “The body was slumped face down.
“The body was virtually cremated.”
The court heard the body, which was lying face down with feet on the floor, had been badly damaged by fire and heat.
Paramedic Holly Smith attended the scene after the body was found. She said the remains “just appeared to be a skeleton”.
In a statement to detectives, Miss Nguyen’s sis- ter Quynh Nguyen told of her fear when her sibling did not return to the home they shared that night last August, and that she had searched the streets looking for her.
Mrs Nguyen said she did not ask her sister, who had a little boy, much about her personal life.
The court heard the sisters had been born in Vietnam and moved separately to the UK, but lived together in Killingworth.
They ran a nail salon, named Glitter Nails, together at Birtley in Gateshead.
Unwin, 40, of St. Oswald’s Terrace, Houghton, and McFall, 51, who is originally from Northern Ireland but now of Waterloo Road, Blackpool, have both denied her murder and rape.
“The body was slumped face down” JAMES FERGUSON
The trial continues.