7:10am Thursday 5th November 2009
By Kirsty Whalley
A group of teenagers allegedly set a family home on fire after launching a rocket through a bedroom window.
Bronwen Steere, 47, a mother of three, said her family were traumatised after the firework smashed through the window of her 16-year-old daughter’s bedroom setting it alight.
The firework caused over £25,000 worth of damage to the 100-year-old Norbury home at the beginning of half term at 7pm on Sunday, October 25.
Mrs Steere was at home with her husband Mark and three daughters.
She said: “My 16-year-old daughter had just left her room after getting ready to go to a birthday party.
“I had been watching some teenagers who were setting off fireworks a few feet from our house.
“I could not believe they were setting them off in such a stupid place.
“I went off to watch a film in the lounge with my youngest daughter when we heard a loud explosion. My 11-year-old thought the firework had hit the roof.
“She ran upstairs because she was worried the cat was frightened and then came downstairs and said the house was on fire.”
Mrs Steere went to see for herself what had happened and was confronted with the sight of her daughter’s room ablaze.
The firework had rocketed through a closed glass window setting the curtains and bed on fire.
She said: “I closed the door and grabbed the girls, shouting to my husband, who was in the kitchen, to get out the house because it was on fire.”
She called the fire brigade who were at her home within minutes and set about battling the blaze.
Mrs Steere said her daughter Daisy, a Brit School student, lost everything in the fire including costumes from her appearances in West End shows.
“She has no clothes and no possessions, nothing can compensate for the trauma of the whole thing.”
In the nights following the fire, the family had to sleep in their lounge because of the charred wreckage upstairs.
Mrs Steere said: “We have experts coming in to assess the damage so we can start to rebuild but it’s not going to be fixed before Christmas.”
A 16-year-old boy was arrested in connection with the incident and charged with arson.
He has been bailed to appear at Croydon Youth Court on November 6.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/trade_directory/