A KEIGHLEY man has been jailed for life for his part in starting a blaze which killed a mum and her three children.
Calum Sunderland, of Calton Street, was sentenced at Doncaster Crown Court to lifetime imprisonment – with a minimum term of 18 years – for four counts of manslaughter.
Sharaz Ali, 40, of no fixed abode, was given a whole life order for murdering Bryonie Gawith, 29, and her three children and attempting to murder his ex-partner Antonia Gawith.
Ali aimed to gain revenge on Antonia, who had left him after a seven-year relationship.
He recruited crack-cocaine addict Sunderland for the plot – to torch Bryonie’s house in Westbury Road, Bradford, where Antonia was staying, in the early hours of August 21, 2024.
While Antonia managed to escape the fire, Bryonie and her three children – Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five, and Aubree Birtle, 22 months – were trapped upstairs and could not be saved.
Sunderland, now aged 27, carried a canister filled with seven litres of petrol to the front door, which he also kicked in on Ali’s instructions.
He “knew the house was occupied” and agreed to an “extraordinarily dangerous” scheme, according to judge the Honourable Justice Mr Nicholas Hilliard KC.
He said: “He played with fire and four people died as a result.”
The judge said Ali’s plan was to “wipe out a family” and the three children were “acceptable collateral damage” for him because he was so full of hatred for his one-time partner.
Nicholas Worsley KC, representing Sunderland, said he had initially believed he was going to torch a car and that the house was empty.
But the judge determined that Ali had rung Sunderland to recruit him and when he went to pick him up in Keighley – driven by Mohammed Shabir, who was due to stand trial alongside the two men but died in custody – a conversation of some minutes occurred between the defendants.
Mr Hilliard said: “I am sure that Ali was relaying the plan to set fire to the house at some point during that.”
Following sentencing, family of Bryonie and her children said: "Today, the judge sentenced the monsters who killed our beautiful family – Bryonie and her children Denisty, Oscar and Aubree.
"But no sentence, no matter how long, can ever heal the pain caused. "Every day, our hearts ache with the emptiness left behind."
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