Grieving dad says fire crews took too long to reach scene of fatal house fire in Northamptonshire

ITV News

09-06-2025

A grieving father who tried to save three people from a burning house says all three could have survived if firefighters had not taken triple the target response time to get there.
Lee Thorn said it should have taken crews just eight minutes to reach his home in Rushton, Northamptonshire, after the emergency services were called at 10.27pm on a Friday night in March this year.
His girlfriend Emma Conn, son Louie Thorn, and Ms Conn's four-year-old daughter Mayci Fox all died in the fire that destroyed the house at Station Road. An inquest was told their provisional causes of death were due to smoke inhalation.
Mr Thorn said he tried to get back into the house three times after being woken by 23-year-old Louie that night.
"[Louie] could have got out that night because he woke me up. He saved my life," he said, describing his son as a hero.
The grieving dad said he asked Ms Conn to call the fire brigade and told Louie to grab Mayci.
He then watched a staircase collapse after running down to close a door and try to contain the flames, which he believes began in the washing machine in his cellar.
As he waited for emergency services to arrive, he grabbed a ladder and climbed up to the bedroom window where he saw his partner and told her to "pass me the baby".
"Emma turned round and I never saw her again," he said.
As a former firefighter, Mr Thorn said he knew it should have taken just eight minutes for two local retained crews to arrive on the scene. He believes it took at least three times that long.
"If Desborough and Rothwell [crews] had arrived on site within eight minutes, I think all three of them would have been saved," he said. "That area wasn't on fire. I think a ladder would have been committed straight away, all three would have been out alive."
Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service said it had carried out a "thorough debrief" about "how the incident unfolded" but said it would be inappropriate to comment until an investigation by the area's coroner had concluded.
After being taken to hospital to have burns treated, Mr Thorn said he was told he was being arrested on suspicion of triple murder.
After several hours of questioning, Mr Thorn was released without charge at 1.27pm. Just over an hour later, Northamptonshire Police's social media announced a 54-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of murder.
The force has since confirmed there was no evidence of criminal activity and the fire was not suspicious.
But Mr Thorn said it had not taken long for people to link him to the arrest. Relationships between the families remain tense and Mr Thorn said he had since received threats from members of the public.
"It's incompetence," he said. "And it's ruined my life. How can I ever get a job? How can I ever get an enhanced DBS check? Who is going to employ someone who has been arrested on suspicion of triple murder?"
Mr Thorn said he was told the justification for his arrest was that "the fire was so ferocious it had to be set deliberately".
"It had been burning ... longer than it should," he said. "If they had been on site within eight minutes it would have been a completely different story."
Mr Thorn said the events of that night are never far from his mind and he struggled "massively at night".
He said he felt let down by the emergency services and hoped the police and fire service would acknowledge the mistakes they had made.