CONFLICTING REPORTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26981, 17 January 1949, Page 5

CONFLICTING REPORTS

FIRE IN SOVIET CONSULATE

DISTORTION BY LONDON PRESS ALLEGED

NZPA—Copyright

LONDON, Jan. 14. Alla Abranova, the three-year-old daughter of a Soviet Consulate official, died in hospital after being rescued last night from a fire in the consulate in Kensington. Soviet officials, at first saying, “ Keep out of this Soviet territory,” refused to allow firemen, police and ambulance men to enter the consulate, but an air hostess, Jean Rougier-Watkins, dashed past the officials to the baby on the blazing second floor. The baby’s cot and nightdress were alight when Miss Rougier-Watkins snatched the child in her arms and ran to safety. Four other persons, including the child’s mother, were rescued from a room by an escape ladder. The fire, which started when a gas stove exploded, was confined to one room. Report from Embassy Some British newspapers carried reports of the fire which distorted the actual facts and contained false assertions, cynically using the unhappy incident for political propaganda purposes, said a statement from the press department of the Soviet Embassy today. The statement said that, contrary to the assertions made by certain papers, the Soviet Consular employees did not interfere with the access of firemen and offered no obstacles to the work of the fire brigade. It added that a report that the firemen had to get permission from Red Army men to enter and that the police were allowed to enter the building “ accompanied by Russian soldiers ” was a fantastic invention. The statement added that the repprt that Miss Rougier-Watkins rescued the child'from a blazing room did not correspond with the truth. Her part consisted in offering her services in taking the child to hospital, and with her help two members of the embassy took the injured child to hospital. For this the embassy was grateful. The embassy expressed regret that apparently Miss Rougier-Watkins had fallen victim to sensationalism, behind which was concealed an unsavoury political motive. Police Not Obstructed A Scotland Yard official said to-day that the police were not obstructed or impeded in any way by Russian officials when they attended the fire. An official of the London Fire Brigade, commenting on the Russian statement, said the. brigade received no reports that ’ firemen were interfered with in the execution of their duty. Miss Watkins’s Story When Miss Rougier-Watkins read the Soviet Embassy statement, she said: “I am speechless. It is entirely wrong. What I said was the truth. People standing around saw what happened. If they are not grateful, then to hell with them.” * Earlier, Miss Watkins, describing her part in the incident, said: “I saw a girl at a window, next to a man, beating the panes with her fists. As I tore up the staircase I had to fight a stream of people racing down. They knocked me aside.. When I got into the smoke-filled nursery, a man handed the baby to me, and I dashed downstairs, trying to beat out the flames of its burning nightdress.”