THE aunt of a three-year-old girl who died after an arson attack has told how the man accused of starting the blaze threatened to kill her when she ended their relationship.
Graham Heaps, 43, is alleged to have deliberately started the fire at toddler Francesca Bimpson’s home in Everton in a jealous rage after her aunt Linda Skelhorne broke off their relationship.
Francesca was rescued by firefighters, but had suffered 95% burns and died in hospital three weeks later.
Pub handyman Heaps denies murdering Francesca by starting the lethal blaze on December 2, 2008.
But, on the seventh day of Heaps’s trial, Liverpool Crown Court jurors heard how he reacted furiously when Miss Skelhorne split up with him.
She described how she started a relationship with Heaps about two years ago, after the breakdown of her previous relationship.
But, after about five months, she decided to return to her former partner Raymond Francis and split up with Heaps. She said: “I told Graham it was too soon for me to be getting into a relationship with him, so soon after my break up with Franner [her ex-boyfriend] and I shouldn’t be with him.
“I tried to end it. He said I was soft to go back to Franner. I told him I was sorry. It was too soon for me and I wanted to go back to Franner. He grabbed me by the throat and said he would kill me, but he never hurt me.”
Heaps, of Woodside Terrace, Crumlin, Newport, South Wales, denies both murder and manslaughter.
The case continues.
