Mother died after dropping lit match into armchair

Dec 5 2009 by Dave Black, The Journal

ATROUBLED mother-of-three died in a house fire after dropping a lit match onto an armchair, an inquest was told yesterday.

Mandy Pearse – who had a history of alcohol problems and was said to have cut herself off from her family – was killed when the blaze broke out in her home in Weetwood Avenue, Wooler, Northumberland in March.

She was found lying unconscious in the living room by firefighters and died from the effects of breathing smoke, despite 30-minute long efforts to resuscitate her in the garden.

The fire brigade was called at about 12.40am by passers-by and neighbours after they heard an alarm going off in the house, and saw smoke and flames inside the property.

A few hours earlier Mrs Pearse, 42, had burst into the home of neighbour Margaret Hood in an ‘extremely agitated’ state, and claimed someone had been throwing stones at her windows and was hiding in her back garden. Mrs Hood took her home, tried to calm her down and made checks to ensure that no one was in the garden.

Shortly afterwards, Mrs Pearse turned up at the door of another neighbour, Selby Watson, who said she was ‘babbling’ and that he could not understand her.

As she left she told him: “I’m not going to stop in that house.”

A fire investigation carried out following the tragedy concluded that the most likely cause was Mrs Pearse dropping a lit match onto an armchair in the living room of the house.

Matthew Thomas, from the Northumberland fire and rescue service’s arson task force, said it was impossible to say whether the match had been dropped accidentally or deliberately.

The fire in the armchair had produced the toxic fumes which resulted in her death.

The Berwick inquest heard that Mrs Pearse began living in Weetwood Avenue in 2005, after moving out of the house she shared with her husband John and their three children.

Mr Pearse told police that his wife’s heavy drinking had put a strain on their relationship.

Following her brother’s death in 2007 she lost weight and became detached from her family.

Mr Pearse said: “We hardly ever saw her and she seemed to cut herself off.

North Northumberland coroner, Tony Brown, said Mrs Pearse had a history of alcohol problems, but a post-mortem showed she had drunk only a small amount on the night she died.

Verdict: Open.