TRAPPED INSIDE THIS

Jessica Williams, 32, could hear her children crying out for her, but she couldn’t get to them

- FRANCESCA WOODSTOCK, JANE COHEN

Waking up to a clear, blue sky, I pulled back the curtains and smiled. It was 24 June last year, and the weather was set to be a scorcher. With a day off from my job as a preschool teacher, I picked out a floaty summer dress and slipped on my flip-flops. After waving my fiancé Mike, 35, off to work, I headed with our two boys – Reuben, then five, and Elliot, two, to the park for some fun in the sun.

We had a perfect morning playing games, and by 2pm we were exhausted.

‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ I whispered to Elliot as I parked the car outside our house.

Mike and I had bought the three-bed terrace in the village of Seven Sisters, South Wales, five years earlier. We’d both grown up in the area, and there was a real sense of community in the village, which we loved. It was our perfect family home.

STEPPING INTO DANGER

As I turned the key in the door, I was hit by an overwhelming smell of gas. ‘What’s that smell, Mummy?’ Reuben asked.

With Elliot half asleep, and Reuben already making his way inside, I wasn’t really thinking straight, and I was in a state of panic as I ushered the boys to the sofa in the front room while I went to investigate. ‘Don’t move,’ I warned, thinking that the boys would be safest there.

Heading to the kitchen, I walked towards the oven, knowing the hob was the only appliance we had that ran on gas. I couldn’t remember having used it that morning, and I couldn’t see anything strange or hear a hissing noise anywhere, so I reached a hand out to check the dial on the hob, to see if it was turned on.