Families call for file to be reopened on fatal fire in bedsits

The families of five people killed in a fire at a flat linked to Nicholas van Hoogstraten have called on police to re-open the 10-year-old case.

Tim Sharp and four of his friends died after a fire broke out at his home in Hove, East Sussex, in the midst of his 28th birthday celebrations in 1992.

Another partygoer Trevor Carrington accepted the blame, and claimed to have started the fire as a prank. But relatives of the victims have always believed there was more to the incident, pointing to a fire investigation report that concluded it was the work of an arsonist.

It has also been claimed that unemployed Mr Carrington, who was knocked down and killed by a truck shortly after the inquest, was in receipt of a large sum of money held in an offshore bank account.

A few months before the fire, the leaseholders had won a legal battle for the right to buy the freehold, overturning an earlier sale between two companies alleged to have strong links with van Hoogstraten. His lawyers deny the jailed tycoon has any connection with the building.

Van Hoogstraten gained a terrifying reputation for violence and intimidation as he built his property empire. He famously referred to his tenants as "scumbags" and boasted that evictions were "fun".

Mr Sharp's father, Geoffrey, is urging police to re-open the case, after van Hoogstraten's alleged links to the Hove property re-emerged during his trial last week.

Mr Sharp told Radio 4's Today programme yesterday: "I'd like a fresh opening of the inquiry into the death because I'm sure a lot of the evidence wasn't produced at the time.

"The only way out at the time of the fire was across the roof, and poor old Tim didn't have a chance."

His call was backed by Jay Johns, the brother of another of the victims, 31-year-old Adrian Johns, who said: "It is something you think about every day and you do wonder where the fire escape was, why this wasn't investigated when the chief fire officer at the time said there were three seats to that fire and it would have taken more than one person to do it. So someone has walked away without ever being questioned".

Jerry Binstead, the fire investigator whose report suggested that the blaze had been started in three places, told the programme: "I don't believe it could solely have been put down to a prank.

"The couple who lived in the flat on the top floor had been warned by two men a couple of days before to get out of the flat because something was going to happen."

The others killed in the fire were Andrew Manners, 29, of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Mable Roberts, 48, of Colwyn Bay, Clwyd, and Paul Jones, 33, from Brighton.

In a typical mix of scorn and arrogance, Van Hoogstraten, who has always denied any link to the block of flats or the fire, once told a journalist: "That is an outrageous suggestion. If you are going to do it, you do it properly."