FAMILY ‘STILL HAUNTED’ BY ARSON ATTACK ON THEIR HOME
VICTIMS SUFFER FLASHBACKS AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS THREE YEARS ON
FIVE members of a family whose home was destroyed by arson told a court they are still traumatised, three years on.
One said: “Even now, it haunts me one of us might not have made it.”
Shivam Takiar, 28, was yesterday sentenced for starting the fire, in Prestwold Road, Leicester, in July 2016.
FIVE members of a family jumped to safety from their burning home after it was targeted by an arsonist, a court has heard.
By what they called a “miracle” the family survived. But their home and everything in it was destroyed.
They say they still suffer sleepless nights and flashbacks as a result of the actions three years ago of 28-year-old Shivam Takiar.
At Takiar’s sentencing at Nottingham Crown Court, it emerged the family had moved to the UK from India about a decade ago, in search of a new life.
In 2002, the court was told, their home in India was damaged in a fire during rioting.
Takiar, who has been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum and having mild learning disabilities, poured petrol through the letterbox of the home in Prestwold Road, off Uppingham Road, Leicester, at 4am on July 18, 2016.
The mother, father, daughter and two brothers woke to discover flames surging up the stairs towards their bedrooms.
They realised their only way out was to smash a first-floor bedroom window and to climb out and drop to the ground, Nottingham Crown Court was told yesterday.
The mother fell heavily on to the concrete and was knocked out.
The court heard that Takiar acted after he learned one of the sons had fallen out with a group of his friends.
Believing he was acting in accordance with his friends’ wishes, he drove to the home in the dead of night and started the fire.
Members of the family wrote victim impact statements, portions of which were read out in court.
One of the sons wrote: “I watched my family jump for their lives, in fear of being burned alive.
“These memories keep replaying in my mind. My family were completely innocent and we could have died that night had we not awoken from our sleep or jumped out of the window.
“I felt it was God’s miracle we all survived.”
In her statement, the mother said: “Although it is a miracle we survived, we are still dealing with the mental trauma.
“Even now, it haunts me that one of us might not have made it out.
“We did get out, barefooted and in our night garments.”
The daughter wrote: “We all took our chances and jumped. My mum was unconscious for 10 minutes or so. I was screaming at her to wake up. I thought we’d lost her. It must have been two or three months that I struggled to sleep, fearing another incident.
“I still cry now when I think about what happened to us and the difficulties we have faced since. My family lost everything.”
At a trial earlier this year, Takiar, of no fixed address, was found not guilty of attempted murder and of arson with intent to endanger life.
He pleaded guilty to committing the offence of arson reckless as to whether life was endangered.
Passing sentence yesterday, Judge Timothy Spencer QC told him he would serve six years in a specialist medical unit which treats offenders who are on the autistic spectrum. The judge told him: “It was a case of either get out of that window now or die. It was that simple.
“The mother was injured because she was not able to manoeuvre herself and drop. She was knocked unconscious.
“Her family must have thought there and then that she had suffered a serious injury and perhaps even felt that she had been killed.”
The judge said Takiar had been “exploited” by a group of men he “perceived” to be his friends and had set the fire because he believed that was what they wanted.
Judge Spencer said: “You cut a sad and lonely figure. You have been protected and supported throughout your life by your mother and your sisters.
“It is not fanciful to say that had your condition been identified and treated earlier you would not in all probability have offended at all.
“You know right from wrong. You knew perfectly well it was wrong to set fire to that house.
“You knew you were putting lives at risk. This was pre-determined and pre-planned.”