Pensioner died after teenage nurse 'set fire to her care home so she could be the heroine' - 30th Mar 2011

A teenage care worker started a fire in a pensioner’s bedroom so she could be hailed as a heroine when she raised the alarm, a court heard yesterday.

But the plan backfired tragically when bed-bound Irene Herring suffocated in her bed at Ancaster Court in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex.

Mrs Herring, 86, was rescued from the third-floor room by firefighters and rushed to Conquest Hospital in Hastings, but died the next day with husband David by her side.

Nursing home assistant Rebecca Reasbeck, now 20, who denies murder and manslaughter, was working in the laundry room two floors down on the morning of the fire in February 2009.

Prosecuting, Anthony Haycroft told Lewes Crown Court: ‘The defendant deliberately set fire to Irene’s bedroom in two separate places. She pretended she could smell smoke downstairs from the place where the fire was lit and she raised the alarm.

‘She did this so she could act the heroine, but unfortunately the flames got out of control, as well as the heat, and Irene died as a result.’ Read More