Owners arrested over Cornish hotel blaze that killed three holidaymakers

Andy Woollam, 42, and his wife Sarah, 36, were questioned by detectives who are treating the deaths at the Penhallow Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, as murder.

The couple, who lived in a flat with their two children yards from the shell of the 54-bedroom Edwardian building, were released on police bail after being held in custody overnight on Tuesday.

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The Penhallow was destroyed in minutes last summer when fire ripped through all four storeys, killing Joan Harper, 80, Peter Hughes, 43, and his mother, Monica, 86. Police later revealed the fire had been started deliberately.

In the aftermath of the blaze, Mr Woollam told how he had been traumatised by the tragedy.

He said he was in his flat around the corner from the hotel when a member of staff called to tell him the building was ablaze.

"When I walked around the corner I could not believe what I was seeing," he said. "It was all flames and smoke.

"I was in a state of panic. I wanted to go inside, but police wouldn't let me. It was extremely traumatic but we managed to get around 80 people out.

"I'm absolutely distraught as are all of the staff. I'm still traumatised."

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Around 90 guests escaped after fire broke out at around midnight on August 18, but teacher Peter Hughes, from Staffordshire, was forced to jump from the third floor.

He had tried to save his mother and was heard to shout "I can't breathe, I can't breathe" before leaping to the ground.

Police later said the fire was started deliberately with a naked flame in the store room behind the bar on the ground floor.

In January police arrested a 44-year-old man and a 21-year-old man, both of whom were bailed until next month.

The day before the first arrests, Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Boarland said that, given the ferocity of the fire, it was an "absolute miracle" the investigation was not into many more deaths.

He said: "The deaths of Joan Harper, Peter Hughes and Monica Hughes occurred as the result of a deliberate act by somebody or some people in causing that fire.

"These three deaths are tragic enough as it is - but those who saw the ferocity and speed at which it occurred know it is an absolute miracle that with over 90 people in that hotel, many of them elderly, this could have been a murder investigation into many more deaths."

Detective Chief Inspector Darren Lockley, chief investigation officer, also said it was possible they had already interviewed or "taken information" from whoever was responsible.

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Pat Albert, the daughter of Monica Hughes and Peter's sister, said arsonists had committed the "ultimate theft".

Joan Harper, from Stoke on Trent, was staying at the hotel with her twin sister Marjorie Brys who managed to escape and said later: "I have simply lost my other half.

"To hear someone must answer a murder charge is a heavy burden."

The blaze was the biggest loss of life in a UK hotel fire since seven people died at the Worsley Hotel in Maida Vale, West London, in 1974.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said yesterday: "Two people who were arrested on May 13 in connection with the fire at the Penhallow Hotel Newquay have been released on police bail pending further enquiries.

"They will return to Newquay police station in September 2008."