CHILD BURNED TO DEATH

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1930, Page 9

CHILD BURNED TO DEATH

LIGHTED “CANDLE IN THE BED.

EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST.

By Telegraph.—Prean Association. Auckland, Last Night.

A finding of. accidental death was returned by the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., this morning at the inquest into of Norma Constance Wilson, ’girl who died'at the Auckland hospital yesterday afternoon as the insult of her clothing catching fire. Evidence was given by the father of the child, Wilfred Herbert Wilson, a fish curer of Grey Lynn, that when he left home early yesterday morning his daughter, aged 4 l Z>, was in an upstairs room at the home of his parents, occupied by himself and child. He blew out the candle which he had carried down to breakfast at 4.45 a.m. and took the matches off the dressing table. So far as he was aware there were no other matches in the room. Later in the morning he saw his daughter at the hospital and he asked her what had happened. She conscious and said: “I lit the candle.” Witness said his stepbrother occupied a room adjoining his and it seemed likely to him that the child went there and secured some -matches.

Mary Ann Houseman, .grandmother, of the child, said that when she was dressing- at 7.15 o’clock yesterday morning she heard screams. She rushed upstairs and saw Norma at the top of the stairs with her nightgown aflame. With the aid of her husband she wrapped the child in a blanket to extinguish the flames and had her removed to the hospital. It would appear that when Norma awoke she lit the candle and took it into bed with her, as witness found the . bed aflame and the candle sitting in the centre of it ,alight. A doctor said the child was admitted to the hospital at 7.15 yesterday morning and died at 1 p.m. from shock following burns to the face, chest, abdomen, back, arms and legs. ,