Cigarette 'could not have started fatal fire', court told

A fire investigation expert told the trial that a cigarette cannot ignite the vapours given off by a liquid like white spirit.

Stephen Eastwood, who is accused of her murder, was asked by his barrister Jonathan Fuller QC why he told a number of people his wife had been smoking and how that must have ignited the white spirit.

Eastwood said he did not see his wife smoking a cigarette, but assumed that was what set light to the liquid.

The defendant said that after the flames were out, he put his wife in the shower and she asked for a cigarette then.

Eastwood described how his wife refused to let him call an ambulance despite him fearing the burns were very serious, even life-threatening.

But he eventually insisted that he drive her to hospital in Rotherham.

Asked what happened in the house, he said: “It’s just a tragic, sad incident.”

When asked “Did you want to kill her?,” he replied: “No, not at all.”

Eastwood told the jury about the last words he exchanged with his wife as she was being treated in hospital.

Wiping away tears, he said: “She asked me not to leave her in hospital and she said she loved me.

“I said ‘I’m not going anywhere’ and I loved her.

“They were the last words we ever spoke.”

Eastwood told the court they met a few years before getting married. They had no children but Mrs Eastwood had two sons from a previous marriage.

He said that they had some money worries, especially since the start of the recession. But he said they enjoyed going on holiday and described trips they had been on all around the world.

Eastwood said the argument on December 27 last year related to events the day before after they had been to his sister-in-law’s home for Boxing Day.

He said his wife had been drinking and had argued with her father on the journey home.

Eastwood said they got home and watched her favourite film, Dirty Dancing, before she went to bed and he slept on the settee downstairs.

Eastwood denies murder. The trial continues.