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| Depressed tenant caused blast
at flat |
Explosion victim had threatened
to ‘take the block out’
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The flat after the explosion
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AN explosion that destroyed a flat in a Highgate Newtown housing
estate was caused by a botched suicide attempt by a depressed tenant,
an inquest heard on Friday.
Daniel Jacobson, 42, was severely burned in the blast at his flat
in Girdlestone Walk, Dartmouth Park Hill, on August 16 this year.
He had yanked a gas pipe from the boiler and lit a cigarette.
Neighbours pulled Mr Jacobson to safety from the flames but he died
in hospital 16 days later after contracting the infection MRSA septicaemia.
The Westminster inquest heard how the concrete walls at the front
and rear of Mr Jacobson’s flat collapsed in the blast and how
fires destroyed rooms and furniture.
The blast was heard more than a mile-and-a-half away. Residents
in Highgate, Dartmouth Park and Parliament Hill, fearing another
July 7-style terror attack, inundated emergency services with calls.
The inquest was told Mr Jacobson had rung a friend, Neil Mullane,
four times on the day of the explosion and had threatened “to
take the block out”.
Mr Mullane said Mr Jacobson, who was unemployed, was anxious about
rent arrears and had been drinking heavily. He said: “I told
him to grow up and to sober up. He said to me: ‘You should
be nice to me when I’m like this. I’m going to do it.
I’m going to blow the place up’.”
Mr Mullane added: “I told him I was going to call the police
and that he’d get locked up. I didn’t think he’d
do it.”
Coroner Dr Paul Knapman said Mr Jacobson was referred to Camden
and Islington Mental Health Trust in 2003. He was drinking and taking
drugs, including cocaine, but was “unmotivated to make changes
to his lifestyle”.
He added that psychiatrist Dr Abby Seltzer had warned that Mr Jacobson
was a chronic suicide risk. His psychiatric report described him
as being emotionally unstable and suffering from a personality disorder.
Mr Jacobson had moved to the flat from residential accommodation
provided by the health trust.
In a written statement read by Dr Knapman, Detective Constable James
Seager, who visited Mr Jacobson in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
after the explosion, said: “He told me: ‘Basically I ****ed
it up again. I’m still alive.’ I asked him what he meant
but he didn’t elaborate.”
A doctor’s report stated that Mr Jacobson had 90 per cent burns.
A post-mortem gave the cause of death as multi-organ failure due
to MRSA septicaemia caused by multiple burns.
Dr Knapman said he would not return a suicide verdict as Mr Jacobson
was “hopelessly drunk”. He added: “I do not know
if he fully understood his actions.” Verdict: misadventure. |
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