POLICE INVESTIGATE MURDER OF SEVEN IN HOME BLAZE

POLICE ARE seeking the motive for a horrific arson attack yesterday that killed seven people, including three small children, writes Mark Rowe.

The blaze in Chingford, north-east London, claimed the lives of twin girls, aged four, and a boy, two, their father, 20, his girlfriend, 16, the children's grandmother, thought to be 51, and great-grandmother, 75. A murder investigation was under way last night into what is believed to have been one of Britain's deadliest arson attacks.

Neighbours heard the children crying in the early hours of yesterday morning and saw the grandmother screaming from a window but were unable to help because the only ladder available was not long enough to reach them and the fire spread too rapidly. The children's grandfather, 52, escaped through a first-floor window.

Det Supt James Moore Sutherland, of Chingford CID, said the deaths were being treated as murder and that a petrol canister had been found at the house. "Somebody out there knows who has done this and we need their help. This is a horrific attack on innocents involving the tragic deaths of four generations of one family," he said. "This is the worst I have seen in 31 years in the job."

DS Sutherland said it was too early to talk about possible suspects or motives. "We are at the beginning of the investigation. We are in for a long haul."

REPORT AND PICTURES, PAGE 3