‘It’s hard to look, knowing what happened’

On a grey December morning, number 26 Westbury Road sits quietly beneath the steadily falling rain, showing little sign of the deadly blaze which claimed the lives of a mother and her three children.

Torched in a jealous rage by Sharaz Ali, the property has stood empty for months, shuttered behind metal screens following the deaths of Bryonie Gawith and her young family.

Now, with Ali facing life in jail for their murders, the house is being renovated, but while the physical scars may be removed the emotional impact on the community is much harder to erase.

“A lot of people won’t talk about it because they are still upset,” one woman says.

She is the first person who has agreed to speak about the events of 21 August 2024, but has asked not to give her name.

Like many in the street she remembers the fire in vivid detail.

She recalls waking in the early hours to see the flames and smoke billowing from the semi-detached house, before watching the desperate efforts of neighbours and the emergency services to help those trapped inside.

She remembers too the sense of grief at hearing that Bryonie and her three children, Denisty, nine, Oscar, five, and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle, had died.

And she is well aware of the lasting impact of their deaths.

“I have seen somebody move away because of it,” she says.

“We have to look at the house all the time, and you know what happened.”

Little more than a year on, it would be easy to walk past the house unaware of the tragedy that unfolded inside.

In the immediate aftermath, black scorch marks covered the front of the property and piles of charred debris littered the front garden.

Now it looks like any other home in the middle of a refurbishment.

The steel screens which covered the empty window frames have been replaced with fresh glazing and a matching front door.

A trio of workmen can be seen coming and going, with a small pile of fire damaged materials in the driveway the only real evidence of what happened.

Forty miles away at Doncaster Crown Court, jurors have heard nearly four weeks of evidence as prosecutors made their case against Ali and his accomplice Calum Sunderland.

During their trial, the court heard how Ali “motivated by jealousy” had gone to the house to “inflict maximum pain” on his ex-girlfriend, Antonia, who had sought refuge at her sister Bryonie’s home following their break up.

Armed with a canister of petrol and a lighter, Ali ordered Sunderland to kick the front door down before marching inside and setting a “catastrophic” blaze.

While Antonia was able to escape, Bryonie and her three children were trapped upstairs.

Ali too was caught up in the fire, and was not initially expected to survive, spending several months in hospital.

He attended court in a wheelchair, visibly scarred and having had a number of fingers amputated.

He denied murder but was found guilty after a trial, while Sunderland was convicted of four counts of manslaughter.

Back in Westbury Road, neighbour Wayne Stephenson is another of those who remembers the fire all to well.

He recalls being alerted by his dog barking before he opened his back door to hear a woman shouting.

When he saw the flames he jumped over a fence to help.

“I tried getting in the back door but I couldn’t, so then I’ve run up the side of the house and there’s a lady screaming ‘my sister is in there with her kids’,” he said.

“I tried getting in the front door, but it was too hot.”

Mr Stephenson said emergency services arrived within minutes and went into the house to try and rescue the family.

“We were stood in the garden and then next thing we see them bring the kids out.

“At this point I just dropped to my knees.”

He describes what he saw next as “the worst thing I’ve seen in my life”.

The fire also had a lasting impact on the emergency crews who attended that night.

Bradford district commander Benjy Bush recalls the flames being “very intense”, with firefighters quickly recognising it as “a significant fire”.

“This is the sort of thing that firefighters talk about afterwards – could we have done anything better, could we have done anything more?

“We do ask ourselves those questions, but this particular incident was a very challenging house fire.”

Echoing Mr Bush’s comments, trial judge Mr Justice Hilliard said the case had been “distressing beyond measure” for those involved.

In his closing remarks to the jury he added: “I don’t think anyone who heard Antonia’s desperate cries for help will ever forget them.”