Children ‘died in blazing house over suspect’s feud with brother’

A TRIAL which heard how four children died after being trapped in their bedrooms when their house was torched with petrol bombs in the dead of night, is set to resume today.

Zak Bolland, 23, launched the fatal attack after feuding with the victims’ 16-year-old brother Kyle Pearson, a jury at Manchester Crown Court was told in yesterday’s session.

Bolland along with David Worrall, 25, removed a fence panel from the garden of Pearson’s home, smashed a kitchen window and tossed in two lit petrol bombs, it is alleged.

One landed near the stairs, trapping the victims upstairs as flames engulfed the three bedroom mid-terrace house on Jackson Street, Walkden, Greater Manchester.

Demi Pearson, 15, her brother, Brandon, eight and sister, Lacie, seven, sleeping in a front bedroom, all perished in the blaze, started at around 5am on December 11 last year.

Their mother, Michelle Pearson, 35, was rescued along with youngest daughter, Lia, three, who died two days later.

Kyle Pearson, who had been feuding with Bolland, managed to escape along with a friend, Bobby Harris, who was also staying at the house.

The firebombing was the culmination of a series of tit-for-tat attacks between Bolland and Kyle Pearson, Paul Reid QC told the jury as the prosecution opened the case at the start of the trial, set to last up to six weeks.

Bolland and Kyle Pearson had been friends until the accused’s Ford Focus was set on fire about two weeks before the fatal attack, and he blamed the teenager.

Both sides launched attacks, breaking windows in each other’s homes with Bolland threatening to firebomb Kyle’s house, the court heard.

The threat led Mrs Pearson to call police but due to an “apparent misunderstanding” police decided to take no action against Bolland for smashing windows.

Just days later he was back, “laughing” that he had escaped police action and shouting “grass”, the court heard. Mrs Pearson asked for a restraining order but two days before her children died, her bin was set on fire and the word “grass” was spray-painted on her house.

The court heard Bolland and Worrall visited Jackson Street four hours before the fire and attacked the door before Bolland shouted: “Watch, all your family’s getting it, they’re all gonna die.”

Kyle Pearson was “worried” they would return so he got a door not attached to the frame and wedged it behind the front door.

He later woke up in his smokelogged bedroom to hear his mum shouting there was a fire. Three fire engines were scrambled and Michelle Pearson was found first on the bathroom floor. In the larger front bedroom Brandon was found lying face down with his head towards the landing as if he had been trying to crawl out of the room.

Lacie was on the floor as if she had been following him.

Demi was found on the bottom bunk bed, her feet on the floor with her hands stretched out to the open window. Lia was the last to be found, lying in the bath.

Bolland, his girlfriend Courtney Brierley, 20, and father-ofone Worrall all deny four counts of murder. They also deny three counts of attempted murder.

Bolland has admitted reckless arson, a charge denied by the other two.

The trial continues.