Huddersfield house fire deaths: Craig Collier 'deliberately started' blaze

Samantha Mills and Reece Schofield were killed in the blaze in Huddersfield on 23 March 2021

A man deliberately started three separate fires at a house, killing two people and injuring four others, a court has heard.

Samantha Mills, 31, and Reece Schofield, 24, died following the blaze in Clare Hill, Huddersfield, on 23 March 2021. Four other people survived.

Craig Collier, 35, of Clare Hill, denies four charges, including murder and attempted murder.

Leeds Crown Court heard the property was used by the homeless at the time.

Opening the trial, prosecutor Peter Moulson QC told the jury Mr Collier first set fire to a mattress in a first-floor room of the three-storey house, directly below where the victims had been "engaged in drug-taking and consensual intimate activity".

He then set another mattress on fire in a ground floor room before putting a chair behind the front door and setting it alight, Mr Moulson said.

Mr Collier then went back to his room at the Cambridge Hotel, opposite the house, jurors heard.

"It is the prosecution's case that three separate fires were deliberately set inside the building by the seventh and only other person in that building at that time, namely the defendant Craig Collier," said Mr Moulson.

He said there was "an intention to kill those other people in the house or at least to cause them, or some of them, really serious harm".

'Watched fire through window'

All six occupants were rescued by firefighters after they tried escaping through an attic window, but Ms Mills and Mr Schofield later died from the effects of smoke inhalation on 26 and 29 March 2021 respectively.

A third person was admitted to intensive care for treatment and three others were left "relatively uninjured", jurors heard.

Mr Moulson said CCTV footage showed the defendant enter the property shortly before 05:30 BST and leave more than 30 minutes later.

The court heard how he "lied to police", telling them another man he had seen entering the property was responsible for the blaze.

In a 999 call made by the defendant, which was played to jurors, Mr Collier said: "I've just woke up, I looked out the window, I can see it, there's smoke, there's a fire, there's literally big flames."

Mr Collier denies two counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, arson with intent to endanger life and perverting the course of justice.

The trial continues.