Camden News: Leather Lane | Fred Turner | Vasage Court | Fire

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Camden News - by TOM FOOT
Published: 11 December 2008

Pensioner dies in mystery blaze hours after hearing of partner’s death

A PENSIONER was killed in a fire in a Holborn tower block on Thursday, hours after learning his partner had died in the same flat.
Traders and residents in Leather Lane were coming to terms this week with the death of Fred Turner, 70, who died when a fireball gutted his sixth-floor flat in Vesage Court, which overlooks the busy market street.
His partner Robert Coe, 43, had died in the two-bedroom flat the day before.
Although fire crews found Mr Turner’s body when they attended the blaze at 8.30am, the connection between the deaths was made when officers at St Pancras Coroner’s Court tried to contact him later on Thursday morning to tell him that a post mortem on Mr Coe’s body had found that he died of natural causes.
“Who can imagine what he [Mr Turner] must have been going through when Robert died?” said neighbour Angie Merrin on Monday. “They seemed to be inseparable and that’s why this is a shock but doesn’t seem such a surprise.”
Police and fire brigade declined to comment on the conviction of neighbours that Mr Turner killed himself in grief. It is believed that the flat’s fire alarm was not functioning at the time.
The couple were a familiar sight around the 120-flat Vesage Court block, where they had lived for several years. Manoj Harji, owner of Hatton News, said: “Fred came in here every day to get his Amber Leaf tobacco. You would see them together all the time. Something happened to Robert in the past few months – he was in a wheelchair. They were both very quiet men – they rarely said anything. I know his partner died yesterday but this is a real shocker.”
A Fire Brigade spokesman said: “Fire crews were called to a flat in Leather Lane Holborn where a fire had damaged a sixth-floor flat 8.05am. The body of a man was found at the scene. The fire was under control by 9.13am. ”
The cause of Mr Turner’s death will be determined by St Pancras coroner Dr Andrew Reid.

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