Two youths blame each other for starting fire which killed a young boy left home alone

Damian Clough, who had severe learning disability and suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and extreme tics, had been left alone at the house.

A fire was lit in an armchair in the lounge, it spread upstairs to a bedroom next to the room where he slept, Bradford Crown Court was told.

Nasir Khan, 18, and a 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, both deny the manslaughter of Damian.

The court heard that the two teenagers had been among five youths who had consumed between them almost three litres of a vodka-based WKD drink before going into Damian's house in Kinara Close, Stockbridge, Keighley, on April 4 last year, looking for his sister.

Prosecutor Julian Goose QC said that after about 25 minutes, three of the youths left leaving the two defendants behind.

He alleged that while Khan and the 17-year-old were in the house and Damian asleep upstairs, "the two defendants acting together, started two fires and then ran from the premises".

A fire in the kitchen went out, but the fire in the lounge smouldered, gradually filling the house with toxic smoke and gas. It burned through the ceiling.

When fire officers entered the house after being alerted by neighbours, they found in front of the closed door of Damian's room the body of the family dog. They found the boy's body inside the room. Khan, of Buxton Street, Dalton Lane, Keighley, voluntarily attended a police station the next day and the 17-year-old youth attended in the early hours of April 6.

Mr Goose said that "both of the defendants blame each other" and that "both defendants admit having seen the start of a fire".

"Both defendants admit being present and alone in the house when the fires were started and they both ran off, one shortly after the other."

The court heard that Damian was never usually left in the house on his own but on the night of the fire his mother Julie Clough went to work before her daughter – who usually remained while Damian was asleep – returned home.

The trial continues.