Baby's grandfather 'died of heart attack after hearing family died in blaze'

 
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Ross Lydall @RossLydall15 January 2013

The father of a victim of the Lakanal House tower block blaze died of a heart attack when told it had claimed the lives of his daughter and granddaughter, it emerged today.

Helen Udoaka, 34, and her 20-day-old baby Michelle were among six people killed in the fire in the council block in Camberwell on July 3, 2009.

Today her husband Mbet Udoaka told an inquest that her father Ojeyokan, who was in his Seventies, died of a heart attack at his home in Nigeria the night after being told of her death.

Mr Udoaka, who had raced back to Lakanal House after being contacted by his desperate wife, told the hearing that he pleaded on numerous occasions with police and firefighters to allow him to enter the blazing building and attempt to rescue his family.

He first spoke to his wife at 4.24pm and jumped into a minicab and raced back to Lakanal House in Camberwell, calling 999 on the way back. They had more than 10 further calls until the line went dead at 5.30pm.

His wife told him that she and Michelle were fleeing their home, flat 82, to the bathroom of flat 81 because the smoke had become too great. Mr Udoaka said he could see two other neighbours on the balcony outside flat 81 pleading to be rescued.

In a statement given several days after the fire, Mr Udoaka recalled his final conversation with his wife. "The last words she said to me were 'The smoke is too much'. She couldn't bear it any more. She said 'Michelle, our daughter, is going to Heaven.' She [Helen] said if she didn't see me any more, she was going to Heaven."

The inquest heard that Mr Odoaka saw his daughter being brought out of the building and accompanied her in an ambulance to King's College Hospital.

But he was unaware what had happened to his wife. Family members were told to go to St Thomas's Hospital but the was no sign of her. Mrs Odoaka was eventually found dead in Lewisham Hospital.

The inquest also heard how the blaze's first victim, fashion designer Catherine Hickman, 31, was a rising star who had made clothes for pop star Bjork and had worked in London and New York.

Her distraught parents Philip and Veronica Hickman, who were too upset to attend the inquest, issued a statement describing her as a shy country girl who had made it big in London with her partner Mark Bailey, a celebrity hairstylist.

Together they mixed with "all sorts of colourful, entailing characters in London and New York, many with famous faces", her parents said. Catherine, originally from Romsey in Hampshire, went on to make dresses for the exclusive shop D and Me in Brompton Road.

Her parents described her as "beautiful, kind, loving, war genuine, trustworthy, loyal, funny, proper, sweet, pure, classic, talented, unique and irreplaceable".

They added: "Catherine had a London life but was a true country girl at heart, a life cruelly cut short when it was a life that was meant for living. All those who knew Catherine are heartbroken."

Catherine's partner revealed he had an agonising wait of several days before being told she had died.

Mark Bailey, a celebrity hairdresser, said he and Catherine's parents Philip and Veronica Hickman were not told until the 6th or 7th of July 2009 that she had been killed in the blaze on Friday July 3, 2009.

He said: "We were not officially informed until the Monday or Tuesday that they had found her body.

"During that time I was feeling indescribable. I was overwhelmed with grief and would wake up screaming and crying every night."

Mr Bailey, who had lived with Ms Hickman for three years and been in a relationship with her for six, was in New York at the time of the blaze and flew back to London immediately. He said they had talked about moving out to be nearer their workplaces in west London.

A father also told the inquest earlier how his "dream" life ended when his wife and children died in the fire.

Rafael Cervi paid an emotional tribute to his Brazilian wife Dayana Francisquini, 26, his six-year-old stepdaughter Thais and his three-year-old son Filipe as he revealed his horror at discovering they had all been killed.

The inquest is expected to last until March.

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