Inquest opens into deaths of Michelle Pearson and her four children in Walkden petrol bomb attack

Mixed · 2An inquest at Bolton Coroner's Court heard on Monday 5 October that Michelle Pearson, a mother of six, died in hospital holding a photograph of four of her children, who were killed in a petrol bomb attack on their home in Walkden, Salford. 1 2 Mixed · 2Ms Pearson was 37. She suffered severe burns in the fire and spent months in a coma, and her family described her death after 21 months as the end of a "lengthy and courageous" fight. 1 2 Mixed · 2Her family put the photograph in her hand and wrapped a crucifix around it as she died. A family statement read at the inquest said: "We know that she is back with her children." 2 1

Mixed · 2Demi, Brandon, eight, Lacie, seven, and Lia, three, were killed after petrol bombs were thrown into the house on Jackson Street in the early hours of 11 December 2017. Lia died two days later in hospital, and Demi died at the scene. 2 1 Mixed · 2The outlets differ on Demi's age, which the Mirror gives as 14 and the Express as 15. 1 2 Mixed · 2The Express gives Ms Pearson's date of death as 25 August 2019, from complications of her burns. The Mirror says only that she died almost two years after the attack. 2 1

Mixed · 2Zak Bolland and David Worrall were jailed for life in May 2018 for murdering the four children, with minimum terms of 40 and 37 years respectively. Bolland's then-girlfriend Courtney Brierley, who waited in a nearby car, was jailed for 21 years for manslaughter. 1 2 Mixed · 2Bolland and Worrall were later convicted of Ms Pearson's murder at a separate trial in 2021. Brierley admitted manslaughter and received an additional concurrent 12-year sentence. 2 1 Mixed · 2Senior coroner Timothy Brennand opened the inquest by reading the sentencing remarks of the trial judge, Mr Justice William Davis. The judge spoke of a feud between some members of the Pearson family and Bolland and Brierley, and said "What lay behind the feud has never been made public". 1 2

Mixed · 2The inquest heard that cars were damaged, that Bolland smashed the house's windows with a hammer, and that he had "threatened to use fire". The Express adds that police and the fire service became involved, the letterbox was sealed up, "grass" was spray-painted on the walls and a wheelie bin was set alight. 2 1 Mixed · 2The judge described "a series of relatively trivial incidents gradually increasing in seriousness which had no conceivable justification, but which could and should have gone no further". 1 2 Mixed · 2The inquest heard that Bolland and Worrall had been drinking and taking cocaine, and went to the house armed with an axe and a machete. They had made two petrol bombs. Worrall's, thrown through a rear window, ignited "but only to a limited extent", while Bolland's "exploded with considerable force" and the blaze consumed the house. 1 2

Mixed · 2Ms Pearson's family said she had been "pleading with" Salford Council to rehome her in the weeks before the attack. They said she was "beyond stressed" by a "tit-for-tat feud", and that her children were "petrified" of living at the property. 1 2 Mixed · 2Mr Brennand said the inquest would examine whether there was "any predictable threat to life" and "what could or should have been done that might have prevented these deaths", including how state agencies worked together to manage the risk after Ms Pearson's reports. He said: "The family are at the heart of this process. The intention is to give the family a voice." 1 2 Right · 1The Express reports that the inquests are expected to last up to eight weeks. 2

Mixed · 2Family pen portraits of the children were read out. Demi was a "happy and smiley child with a heart of gold", Brandon the family's "brainbox" with an "amazing vocabulary" whose favourite word was "putrid", Lacie "a YouTube star in the making", and Lia had a "cheeky laugh and a smile that would melt your heart". 1 2