Student’s fire death will remain a mystery, inquest concludes
Paul Taylor-Willett died three months after becoming engulfed in flames at his home near Camelford.
A college student died three months after becoming engulfed in flames at his home, an inquest heard.
Pawl Taylor-Willett suffered more than 90% burns after petrol was ignited in the incident near Camelford, Cornwall in January last year.
Cornwall Coroner’s Court heard the cause of the fire will remain a mystery as the source of the ignition could not be ascertained.
The 16-year-old student, who was training to be a barber, died at the specialist Morriston Hospital in Swansea on April 25 after his life support was withdrawn.
His cause of death was given as “major burn injury”.
Pawl, who was known as Tik, had been working on his motorbike prior to the fire and a petrol can was found close to the scene of the fire in the lounge.
The court heard the teenager lived with his mother, Jess Willett, and grandmother, Eve Mills, at a terraced house in Otterham Station.
Mrs Mills told the inquest that she was upstairs when the fire started and thought her grandson was outside working on his motorbike.
“The next thing I heard was a very loud crash from downstairs,” she said.
“It sounded like all the saucepans falling onto the floor at once. I shouted, ‘Tik, are you okay?’. But he didn’t answer.
“As I got about halfway down the stairs, I could see flames licking at floor level coming from the front room.
“I shouted, ‘We’ve got to get out, Tik’. I saw Tick with his back to me. I could see three flames on him that looked like really big sparks that were about the size of a 50p piece.
“Initially, it didn’t look like much. It just looked like it was only burning his outer clothes.
“Tik then screamed at me, ‘I’m on fire’. Tik was stood near to the back door, and I saw him go outside, and I followed.
“I saw the neighbours rolling Tik on the grass and they were wrapping him in wet blankets.
“I just stood there, feeling traumatised. I did not realise how badly Tik had been injured.”
Miss Willett told the court her son, who did not smoke, was known to carry lighters and did vape.
“Taking the fuel can into the house was not something that I had ever known him to do,” she said.
“I have no idea why Tik did take it inside on this occasion.”
Fire investigator Glen Beale said he could not be certain of how the petrol ignited – ruling out the Parkray stove in the lounge as the cause – but did find matches nearby.
“I’ve heard today that Pawl did have a lighter on his person at the time, and was known to carry that, and did vape as well,” he said.
“We were also informed about Pawl working on his motorbike and working around the petrol area of the motorbike.
“Vapes do have lithium ion batteries in them, similar to phones, and lithium ion batteries do fail and they can become ignition sources.
“That would have been pretty unfortunate for a vape to explode and to be accelerant in the room at the same time.”
Asked what he thought caused the fire, Mr Beale replied: “I am unable to define the actions taken to ignite that fire.”
Andrew Cox, the senior coroner for Cornwall, recorded a conclusion of accidental death and said he could not be sure how the fire started.
“We know from the evidence of Mr Beale that accelerants were involved in this,” he said.
“We can rule a number of things out, but we actually can’t find something which tells us definitively what that cause was.
“There is nothing to suggest that Tik was depressed, anxious, suffering from some mental health condition, or any suggestion that he wished to take his own life.
“What I think has happened is something that was unintended.
“We can speculate about the use of a vape, idly flicking a lighter or lighting some matches. But none of us know.”