My babies, my babies!
Mother’s anguished screams after escaping house fire that killed four of her five children
‘Her kids were her world’
A MOTHER screamed ‘ my babies, my babies!’ after jumping from a bedroom window to escape a fire which killed four of her five children.
All of the victims were eight and under. The fire followed a suspected gas boiler explosion at the three-bedroom terraced home.
Natalie Unitt, 24, and her partner Chris Moulton, 28, leapt from the firstfloor window with their youngest child, Jack, two, in his father’s arms. He was the only child to survive.
The couple’s sons, Olly, three, and Keegan, six, died alongside their daughter Tilly, four, and Miss Unitt’s eldest child, Riley, eight, who was born after an earlier relationship.
Last night fire investigators were trying to establish the cause of the explosion in Stafford as neighbours suggested the boiler may have blown up.
A relative of Miss Unitt yesterday said the tragedy would ‘break’ the devoted mother. Sarah Pearce, 26, said: ‘Natalie was born to be a mother. It’s all she wanted to do.
‘She loved being a mother – that’s why she had so many. She told me her kids were her world.
‘Natalie will be distraught now. This will break her.’
A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: ‘As the fire raged, I saw Natalie and Chris wrapped in blankets outside. She was screaming, “My babies! My babies!” ’
Another neighbour said she heard Miss Unitt shouting for her ‘babies’ at 2.30am yesterday. She added: ‘I heard a massive bang. I went to look outside and saw a massive fire come out of the upstairs window of the house.
‘The man had a baby in his arms and the mum was wrapped in a duvet standing in the street.
‘The fire brigade hadn’t arrived at that point. They [the couple] seemed pretty calm. They were just looking at the house – I think they were in shock.’
The woman said the victims had been ‘really happy little things’ and ‘so friendly’, adding: ‘It’s just such a tragedy. I can’t bear to think what the family are going through.’
Neighbour Wendy Pickering said: ‘I heard the kids screaming – it was horrible. We thought it was gas. We saw the windows of the parents’ room. The flames were going up the roof.’
According to a post on Facebook from Miss Unitt, she became engaged to Mr Moulton in 2013.
Other Facebook messages suggest she had been through an acrimonious break-up with Riley’s father, Michael Holt, 28, from Wolverhampton. A relative of Mr Holt, who arrived at the scene to lay flowers yesterday, described him as ‘numb’ with grief. Nicola Glover, headteacher of Castlechurch Primary School where three of the four dead children went, said staff and pupils were ‘absolutely devastated’. She described Riley as a ‘very confident, excitable member of school who came every day full of enthusiasm’, while Tilly, who attended the nursery, was a ‘happy little girl’ who ‘loved to read stories, dress up and paint’.
Mrs Glover said Olly, who was also at nursery, was a ‘happy, loving boy who loved cuddles’.
Kim Ellis, head at Marshlands School, where Keegan was a pupil, said he was ‘full of fun and mischief with a really endearing smile’.
Miss Unitt and Mr Moulton were in hospital yesterday being treated for smoke inhalation and burns.
Miss Unitt’s mother, Michelle, lives a few streets away. A man at the home yesterday said the family were too upset to comment.
Fire chiefs said three appliances were sent to the scene. Deputy chief fire officer Rob Barber added: ‘One male, one female and a baby had escaped from the property prior to our arrival via a first-floor window. Our firefighters were faced with very difficult conditions. I cannot comment further on the likely cause.’
Stafford and Rural Homes housing association, which owns the property, would not comment on whether the boiler was a focus of the investigation.
Among the floral tributes left at the scene was one which read: ‘To my lovely grandkids – I will always miss you. Love you always.’