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Thugs murdered teenage girl and grandmother over £15 debt
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent06.11.09
Two thugs were convicted at the Old Bailey today of murdering a teenage girl and her grandmother in a fire they started over a £15 debt.
Shannen Vickers, 17, and 57-year-old Pauline Adams were overcome by smoke and died side-by-side in their fifth-floor home in Bethnal Green.
Firefighters found the victims in the rear bedroom of the flat at Malmesbury House in Cyprus Street.
The killers, Jake Sheehan and David Philip, poured petrol through the letterbox and set it ablaze because they did not want "to lose face" over the debt.
Philip, then 18, had owed the money to a youth who was a member of the victims' family and was furious to be subsequently labelled a bad debtor.
In a fight with the youth an hour before the fire in the early hours in February this year, Philip had shouted: "We are going to burn your house down," and then repeated the threats in a series of phone calls.
Prosecutor Simon Denison QC said: "It is almost beyond belief. But an hour or so later Philip and Sheehan carried out their threat."
Shannen was a popular business studies student at Epping Forest College in Loughton, Essex.
Today Sheehan, 20 of Bethnal Green, and Phillip, now 19 of Bow, were both found guilty of double murder and will be jailed for life when sentenced on Monday by Judge Richard Hawkins.
Nicola Vickers, 36, said: "I've lost a mother and a daughter both at once. Shannen was my only child, my little girl. She never hurt anyone. what kind of anuimals could do this?" she said.
During the trial the court heard that the pair had siphoned petrol from a motorbike parked close to the flat before making the short walk to the scene on the fifth floor of a seven-storey block.
"They poured petrol through the letterbox and onto the door and they set it alight," Mr Denison said.
"They both knew that was where the teenager lived with his family and at 5.30 in the morning they both knew it would have been occupied. As you would expect a major fire rapidly took hold. Thick black smoke and burning fumes filled the flat.
"Pauline Adams and Shannon Vickers would have been asleep inside when the fire was set. They were both overcome by smoke and fumes.
"They died together, lying side by side on Shannon's bed. Two completely innocent people killed over a £15 debt and not losing face."
