Evil neighbour who killed mum and two daughters in house fire after row over bin bags is jailed
A TWISTED neighbour who killed a mum and her daughters in a horror house fire after a row over bin bags has been jailed.
Jamie Barrow poured petrol through the letterbox of Fatoumatta Hydara’s flat in Nottingham then set the home alight.
The 31-year-old then “casually” walked away despite hearing screams coming from the property.
Tragically, Fatoumatta, 28, Naeemah, one, and Fatimah Drammeh, three, all died in the blaze.
Barrow has now been jailed for life with a minimum of 44 years after being convicted of murder and arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered.
In a heartbreaking victim impact statement, husband Aboubacarr Drammeh told of his final moments with his family.
The dad said he kissed his children on the forehead as they slept and waved goodbye to his wife as he prepared to head to the US for work.
He was due to return to the UK a week after the fire to help sort the family’s move to America but his plans were cruelly ripped away.
Recalling the night he lost his family, Aboubacarr said: “On that evening of November 19, the conversation was normal.
“I went to sleep, took a nap, went to bed at night and woke up for early morning prayers.
“While I was praying, my phone started ringing continuously. I thought it was Fatoumatta, wanting to FaceTime.
“We all know it wasn’t. It was my mother-in-law and my sister, so I called back my mother-in-law and she said there was an accident and the kids did not survive and Fatoumatta was in the ICU.
“But it wasn’t an accident, was it?”
The dad also branded Barrow “a coward who knew exactly what he was doing and exactly when to do it”.
He said there are “four grandparents and two great grandparents who would have traded their lives for these people”.
Aboubacarr, who had to identify the bodies, added: “You had choices, but you chose otherwise. Hate, anger, destruction, I don’t know, but of all the choices you had, you chose the most damaging of all.
“I am angry, I am sad, I am hurt, I am heartbroken. At the same time, I am grateful for them being a part of me. I am grateful for Fatoumatta and the kids, as they made me a better person.
“I have no hatred to anybody in the world, including you.”
Fatoumatta’s mum Aminata Dibba told how she had gone out on the morning of the fire to a market in Nottingham to buy toys her grandchildren never got to play with.
Branding Barrow a “heartless human being”, she added: “The day I found out my granddaughters’ lives had been taken by this monster, it felt like at that moment I would do anything to swap my life for theirs.”
Chilling footage showed Barrow calmly walking away from the house while smoking a cigarette as the fire took hold.
He later smirked at police as he asked them how “bad” the blaze was before spending time with evacuated neighbours at Nottingham Trent University.
When police went to obtain a witness report from him, Barrow told them: “I need to tell you something about the fire next door.”
He then bowed his head and held his hands out in front of him as though he wanted to be handcuffed.
The killer later said: “I was going to hand myself in at Clifton Police Station anyway today.”
Nottingham Crown Court was told Barrow had a raised a “grievance” about bags of rubbish being left in an alleyway behind their block of flats around a month before the blaze.
On November 20 last year, Fatoumatta and her children were sleeping when the evil neighbour set fire to their home.
Barrow had the same layout of flat as the family so knew the front door was the only way in and out – leaving them “trapped” as the flames took hold.
He then stood outside doing “nothing to help” as the mum and her children screamed for help.
In his evidence, Barrow claimed he did not realise Fatoumatta and her two children were home when he set the fire.
But CCTV showed him walking past the flat while a light was on to buy beer on two separate occasions.
A pushchair was also kept in the hallway whenever she was in and the children had been “loud and excited” while Fatoumatta spoke to her mum on the phone.
Barrow claimed he was “mesmerised” by flames and used fire to “release stress”.
He said he could not remember everything from the hours leading up to the fire but recalled feeling like “an elastic band went off in my head”.
Barrow added: “I knew I was going to set fire to something, I just didn’t know what.”
Fatoumatta’s husband Aboubacarr Drammeh, 40, had raced back from America after the fire tore through the family home in November.
Tragically, his wife and children were planning to join him in the US where he worked as a biomedical technologist.
The family said in a joint statement: “Words cannot quantify how much our family have suffered because of the horrific actions of one man.
“Neither can we quantify the emotional, psychological, physiological and financial impact of the crime Jamie Barrow committed against Fatoumatta, Fatimah and Naeemah.
“His actions were utterly heartless and cruel – and have caused a multigenerational trauma that we will never understand.
“Fatoumatta was a caring daughter, wife, sister, mother and friend. If love and compassion could make a person immortal, she would have lived forever.
“She had a pure heart and was greatly loved for her personality and qualities.
“She was the most incredible mother to Fatimah and Naeemah, two angels who deserved a beautiful childhood and a full life.
“Nottingham and the rest of the world have been denied potential future teachers, civil servants, doctors – who knows what they could have been?
“They lived a short but meaningful life, such was the joy and happiness they brought to us all.”