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Richard
FIELDING
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: Arsonist - Fielding carried out the attack because of a
grudge he bore his former school friend Lee Day who he claimed had
ruined his chances of becoming famous
Number of victims: 7
Date of murders: March 6, 1999
Date of arrest:
11 days after
Date of birth:
1978
Victims profile: Lee Day, 22, his
girlfriend Yvonne Colverhouse, 17, his twin daughters Maddison and Rhiannon,
3, and son Reece, 2, Day's mother Sandra, 50, and his grandmother
Kathleen, 76
Method of murder: Fire (poured petrol through the letterbox
of the house)
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Status:
Pleaded guilty to
manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Sentenced to be detained at Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire
under the Mental Health Act, for an indefinite period on May 16,
2000
Richard Fielding
of Walthamstow was an arsonist killer responsible for wiping out
four generations within the same family.
On March 6 1999, Fielding set alight to the
family home of his school friend Lee Day in Bellamy Road,
Chingford, after holding a grudge against Mr Day after accusing
him of ruining his chances of a successful career.
The blaze killed Mr Day, his grandmother,
mother, young twin daughters and son and his girlfriend.
Mr Day's father was the only family member to
escape the fire after being rescued by neighbours.
The mentally ill unemployed disc jockey was
sentenced in 2000 to indefinite stay at Rampton Hospital after
pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished
responsibility.
Killer arsonist detained
indefinitely
BBC.co.uk
May 16, 2000
An unemployed disc jockey who set fire to a
house in London, killing seven people, has been ordered to be
detained indefinitely.
Richard Fielding, 21, was sent to Rampton
Hospital in Nottinghamshire under the Mental Health Act after
pleading guilty at the Old Bailey to the manslaughter of seven
people.
The Recorder of London, Judge Michael Hyam,
told Fielding: "If the crime had been committed by anyone with a
normal mind, it would have been a crime of desolating wickedness."
Outside court, Kelly Himpfen, 21, the mother of
three children who died in the fire, said: "It just goes to show
you can get away with murder."
Fielding, from Walthamstow, east London,
carried out the attack because of a grudge he bore his former
school friend Lee Day, 22, who he claimed had ruined his chances
of becoming famous.
He was charged with murder but his plea of
guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility was
accepted on Monday.
House set alight
Fielding admitted killings Mr Day, his
17-year-old girlfriend Yvonne Colverhouse, his twin daughters
Maddison and Rhiannon, aged three, and son Reece, two, Mr Day's
mother Sandra, 50, and his grandmother Kathleen, 76.
They died in the early hours of 6 March last
year when the three-storey family home in Bellamy Road, Chingford,
north-east London, was set alight after petrol was poured through
the letter box.
Lee and Sandra's bodies were found in the
second floor bedroom where they had gone in a vain attempt to
rescue the children.
The only member of the family to escape the
fire, grandfather Brian Day, 52, who was rescued by ladder by
neighbours from a first floor window before the windows were blown
out by an explosion, sat at the back of the court.
Mother lost three children
He was joined
by Kelly Himpfen, the 21-year-old mother of the dead children.
She had separated from Lee Day and the children were staying with
him for the weekend.
On the night of the fire
Fielding filled up a plastic canister in a petrol station and
cycled round the corner to the Day house.
Asked
by the garage attendant if his car had broken down, he replied:
"No, I am going to do a house", but he was not taken seriously.
The petrol can containing Fielding's fingerprint was found in the
area the next day and he was arrested.
Orlando
Pownall, prosecuting, said: "He seemed elated and buzzing. He was
behaving like a small child."
Mr Pownall said:
"He said it was revenge. He felt bad. He said 'If it had just been
the kids, it would have been easier to say sorry'."
Probation reports spoke of Fielding having paranoid psychosis and
narcissistic personality disorder, going back many years.
One doctor said his prognosis was "appalling" and he had little
chance of his illness improving.
Fielding denied
the attempted murder of Brian Day and the Recorder of London,
Michael Hyam, ordered the charge to remain on file.
Mr Pownall said Fielding suffered a severe hand injury during a
burglary he carried out with Mr Day and bore a grudge against him.
He believed the injury made him unattractive to women and felt Day
had wrecked his dreams of being a top DJ.
It was
a resentment which festered and eventually led to seven people,
including three children, losing their lives.
Man remanded over fire deaths
BBC.co.uk
March 18, 1999
A man
has been remanded in custody for a week accused of seven murders
and an attempted murder in an arson attack.
The
man is charged with murdering Kathleen Day, 75, Sandra Day, 50,
and Lee Day, 22, three-year-old twins Maddison and Rhiannon
Himphen-Day, two-year-old Reece Himphen, and 16-year-old Yvonne
Culverhouse in a fire at 15 Bellamy Road, Chingford, London
earlier this month.
The victims of the fire were
officially named by police for the first time following the
hearing at Stratford magistrates' court in east London.
A post-mortem examination revealed all seven victims died from
smoke inhalation.
The accused man cannot be
named after deputy stipendiary magistrate Hugh Vickers ruled it
was "not in the interests of justice or public order" to identify
him publicly.
He also faces an eighth charge, of
attempting to murder 50-year-old Brian Day who managed to escape
the fire by clambering down a ladder put up to a first-floor
bedroom window by neighbours who rushed to help.
The man was remanded until Friday 26 March.
House fire murder hunt
BBC.co.uk
March 6, 1999
Police
are treating as murder the deaths of seven people - six of them
members of the same family - in a London house fire.
Two four-year-old twin girls, a two-year-old boy, their father,
their grandmother and their great-grandmother were killed in the
blaze at a three-storey building in Chingford.
The seventh victim was a friend of the children's father.
Scotland Yard said the three women were aged 16, 51 and 75. One of
the dead men was about 22.
The police officer in
charge of the investigation, Detective Superintendent James Moore
Sutherland, said: "We are treating this as a murder. Somebody out
there knows who has done this and we need their help.
"This is a horrific attack on innocents. This is the worst I have
seen in 31 years in the job."
A plain-clothed
police officer has been seen removing a red petrol canister in a
sealed bag from the scene.
The seven bodies were
left in the burnt-out house until midday on Saturday because it
was too dangerous for emergency services to remove them.
Firefighters then used a crane to pass seven stretchers through a
second-floor window as they began the harrowing task of retrieving
the bodies.
Shortly before 2pm, the dead
children's mother arrived at the scene. Weeping and accompanied by
two friends, she refused to comment.
A London
Fire Brigade spokeswoman said: "The body of an adult male was
found in a first-floor rear bedroom.
"Earlier
two adult females and three children were found in a second-floor
rear bedroom while the body of an adult male was found in the
front bedroom on the second floor."
The alarm
was raised shortly before 0100 on Saturday when flames were seen
coming from the property.
One adult, believed to
be the children's great-grandfather, managed to escape from a
first-floor window with the help of neighbours by using a
builder's ladder.
The man who survived was
taken to Whipps Cross Hospital where he was treated for burns to
the hand.
Before daybreak, a bouquet of white
flowers had been left on the pavement opposite the burnt-out
house.
With them was a hand-written note which
read: "God bless, Sarah, Lee, Abbie XXX."
Lisa
Lewis, a neighbour and good friend of the family, described how
she was woken in the early hours by the sounds of screams and
cries.
She said: "I could hear the kids coughing
and crying. It was terrible ... there was nothing I could do.
"I ran downstairs and called 999 and then went outside. I got ...
a window cleaner, to get his ladders off the van. But it was too
late. The screaming and crying had stopped. You couldn't see them
anymore."
Weeping, Miss Lewis, 25, then told how
the children's mother arrived at the scene: "I just heard her
screaming then 'Get my babies! Get my babies!'
"She collapsed and they took her to hospital," Miss Lewis added.
Another neighbour, Scott Witney, who has lived locally for 22
years and has known the family during that time, said he was
shocked at the tragedy.
Others described the
family as popular. One, Mirle Edmonds, said: "They were very nice
people, a lovely family. The children were beautiful, lovely
children."
