A pensioner’s fascination with cigarette lighters

A pensioner’s fascination with cigarette lighters cost him his life when he set fire to himself at home, an inquest heard.

Retired clerk John Hutton, 80, was found burning by his wife when she returned from a short shopping trip.

She desperately tried to put out the flames with a pan of water and called an ambulance to their flat in Upper Norwood.

But he died later that day on January 9 at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital from broncho-pneumonia brought on by burns to his legs.

Station Officer Andrew Powell told Westminster Coroner’s Court: ‘When we arrived the gentleman was sitting in the armchair with remains of a cushion and pieces of newspaper on his lap.

‘I was told he had a habit of playing with his cigarette lighter.

The fire was very much confined to a small area and there were a number of cigarette lighter on the floor around the chair.

‘I felt the most likely explanation was the newspaper had been lit accidentally, this had ignited the feather pillow and then the chair.

‘

PC Emma Lorford said Mrs Hutton told her she had gone shopping at around 4pm and returned an hour later to find her husband with a burning cushion on his lap.

The fire service was called just before 6pm.

‘There were no suspicious circumstances.

Mrs Hutton told me her husband had become increasingly confused and he had been to see the GP the previous week.

‘

But Mrs Hutton told the inquest: ‘When I left him he wasn’t terribly confused.

There was nothing to tell me that he was likely to get worse.

‘

The couple lived at [63] Highlands Court, Highland Road, Upper Norwood, southeast London, and have one daughter.

Mr Hutton was born in Woodbridge, East Suffolk.

Coroner Dr Paul Knapman recorded a verdict of accidental death.

ends