Wronged wife died in ‘human torch’ horror

Dianne Staniforth, 51, discovered that her husband Paul had been unfaithful after spotting a text on his mobile phone.

An inquest was told that Mrs Staniforth then decided to teach her husband a lesson and poured turpentine over herself before putting a match to it while he and their two children were upstairs in bed at the family home in Brimington Road in Chesterfield.

Mr Staniforth said he was woken by the sound of her screaming and leapt out of bed to find her staggering up the stairs “like a fireball”.

He told the inquest in Chesterfield: “I heard a scream like I’d never heard before.

“I jumped out of bed and heard the screaming again. I met Dianne coming up the stairs.

“She was on fire, the hottest, brightest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Mr Staniforth pushed his wife into the bathroom and began running cold water over her body while their 15-year-old daughter dialled 999 to call the emergency services.

Mrs Staniforth, who worked as a civil servant at the Department of Work and Pensions, was initially taken to Sheffield Hospital before medical staff decided to transfer her to a specialist burns unit at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.

She suffered third degree burns to 70 per cent of her body and died six days after the incident on April 28, last year.

Her husband suffered serious burns to his hands as he attempted to put out the flames.

Pc Michelle Witham told the inquest: “On arrival at hospital Mrs Staniforth was taken for resuscitation.

“Later she beckoned me over and asked ‘where are my kids?’ I told her they were okay and not to worry.

“She said: ‘I did this to myself. I found out my husband was having an affair and wanted to teach him a lesson. I set fire to myself’.”

The court heard how Mrs Staniforth, who also had a nine-year-old son, had taken an overdose in October 2012 and a few months before her death had poured petrol over her head.

Mr Staniforth said that in the six months before her death, his wife had threatened to kill herself between 30 and 40 times.

He said: “I’d remove tablets and wine and lock the doors to stop Dianne going out.

“If she got out she would go and get more wine or sit by the railway lines.”

Mr Staniforth, who is a business consultant, said he wanted to separate from his wife.

He added: “Dianne didn’t want me to leave and said she would kill herself but I never thought she would do anything like this.”

Mrs Staniforth’s sister Julie Baird said that on April 22, last year she had received a text message which said: “Paul slept with someone else. I’m done now, I don’t want to live.”

Mrs Baird had urged her sister to leave her husband in the hope that she would be able to build a new life.

She added: “I don’t think she would have wanted to kill herself.

“She loved her children and I don’t think she would have wanted to leave them.”

Recording a verdict of misadventure, Assistant Coroner Paul McCandless told the hearing: “She inflicted these burns upon herself in an effort to get back at her husband, but not in order to bring about her own death.”