Jamie Barrow was treated as a potential witness as police launched a full scale investigation into the fire at Fairisle Close in Clifton. Officers contacted him to speak with him as they carried out routine inquiries with neighbours, went through hundreds of hours of CCTV and forensic teams got to work on how the devastating blaze broke out..
They spoke with Barrow him at his tiny flat, which was next door to Fatoumatta Hydara's, where she lived with her two daughters, who all died from smoke inhalation after the fire he started.
The officers arrived at the defendant’s flat at about 5.25pm on November 21 and knocked on the door. Barrow, wearing a T-shirt with the words "That's enough", invited them in.
Read more: Drunk father-of-five exposed himself near school in Nottingham
Shortly after their arrival, he said: “I need to tell you something about the fire next door”. He bowed his head and put his hands out in front of him, as though inviting the officers to handcuff him. He then said: “Can you get me out of here without being killed?”
After pretending to know nothing about the fire to police and fellow neighbours, the enormity of what firestarter Barrow had done was slowly beginning to dawn on him.
At that stage, a PC Hicklin went back outside to arrange for other officers to attend. While she was gone, the defendant said to PC Lambert, “I was going to hand myself in at Clifton Police Station anyway today”. PC Lambert cautioned him and did not ask him any questions about what he had said. The defendant did not say anything further.
PC Hicklin took a body worn video camera from another officer, who was maintaining the scene next door, and returned to the defendant and PC Lambert. Shortly afterwards other officers arrived and PC Lambert then arrested the defendant.
Over the course of the next five days the police interviewed the defendant 10 times. He answered ‘No comment’ to all questions he was asked, the trial Nottingham Crown Court had heard.
After the defendant had been arrested, the police searched his flat and the yard outside it. In a bin in the yard they found the plastic spray bottle the defendant had used to start the fire. A very small amount of petrol was found in the bottle.
On the morning of 22 November, doctors at the Queen’s Medical Centre carried out brain stem death tests on Mrs Hydara. Those tests confirmed she had died. The time of her death was certified as 11:09 that morning.
The defendant pleaded guilty to three offences of manslaughter, relating to the deaths of Mrs Hydara, and daughters Fatimah, and Naeemah, and admitted he started the fire and that he caused their deaths.
