A man whose elderly mother was killed when two teenagers stuffed fireworks through her letterbox has called for tighter regulations to avoid another similar tragedy from taking place.
Alan Smith, 55, has called for the sale of fireworks to be banned in the UK – except on four dates – after 88-year-old Josephine Smith died of smoke inhalation in her own home.
The pensioner was killed after Callum Dunne, then 15, and Kai Cooper, then 18, posted the pyrotechnics through her letterbox in Romford, Essex, while she was asleep in her bed.
In the wake of the shocking incident, her son Alan launched a petition aimed at changing the legislation around the sale and use of fireworks.
In it he called for a ban on garden box sales under £50 and pushed for fireworks to only be available for purchase around November 5, December 25 and 31 and Diwali.
Alan’s petition has garnered more than 68,000 signatures and is one of several campaigns that have led to the debate reaching the House of Commons today.
Mr Smith told EssexLive: ‘You can light fireworks from 7am to 11pm year-round.
‘There’s so much hatred around fireworks but largely that’s because they are used year round. Even for the fireworks industry’s sake, if they were limited to those events, they wouldn’t be getting as much grief.’
Alan Smith, 55, has called for the sale of fireworks to be banned in the UK – except on four dates
Alan’s 88-year-old mother Josephine died of smoke inhalation after two two teenagers stuffed fireworks through her letterbox
Dune and Cooper were convicted of manslaughter and the pair were sentenced at the Old Bailey to three years and five years respectively.
A court heard that before the boys reaching Josephine’s house, they had been throwing fireworks at drivers and businesses in the local area.
They were sold the explosives by Mark Vardy, 59, in October 2021.
The ‘Fireworks 4 U’ shopkeeper gave the thugs the products after they told him they wanted to throw them in people’s faces.
Dunne commented that he wanted to throw them at police, while Cooper said he planned to light a Catherine wheel and ‘just throw it’.
‘I shouldn’t encourage you to do things like that,’ joked Mr Vardy, who was caught on camera accepting money from Dunne for some of the explosives after being told he was 16.
He even told the boys of one of the fireworks, called an ‘air bomb’: ‘You can hold it, throw it, do what you like with it.’
Vardy, of Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, was given a 12 months suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of selling fireworks to a 15-year-old.
The ‘Fireworks 4 U’ shopkeeper Mark Vardy gave the two boys the products after being told they wanted to throw them in people’s faces
The Old Bailey heard last year that Dunne’s then 18-year-old accomplice Kai Cooper (pictured) dared him to post the firework
Former shopkeeper Mark Vardy (pictured), 59, was handed a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of selling fireworks to Callum Dunne, then 15, from Southend
The judge found the he and his son Luke Vardy, 29, had engaged in ‘deliberate concealment of the CCTV’, as police eventually had to obtain a warrant allowing them to seize the footage before it was wiped.
Alan said: ‘The two boys when they bought the fireworks clearly stated in CCTV that they wanted to throw them at police and terrorise people – that’s the thing that’s haunted us more than anything. So we need proper training and better education for store staff.
‘Tighter checks on the legislation would be great – it’s becoming a bit blase on the way it’s being handled.
‘My mum was a lovely woman – immaculately turned out and a beautiful lady and the idea of the petition is just trying to find things that would prevent what happened to mum from happening to others.’
Alongside calling for restrictions on when fireworks can be sold, Alan’s petition also calls for Challenge 25 to be made compulsory, garden display boxes to be a minimum value of £50 and tighter restrictions on the licensing of the sale of fireworks.
‘Challenge 25 is not a compulsory thing even with the sales of alcohol, he said. ‘The lads that bought the fireworks, one of them was 15 and he was able to buy them so easily. So I want to encourage it to be more of a family thing as it was years ago.
The two teenagers posted the firework through the door of 88-year-old Josephine Smith’s (pictured) home and she died from smoke inhalation as a result
Alongside calling for restrictions on when fireworks can be sold, Alan’s petition also calls for Challenge 25 to be made compulsory, garden display boxes to be a minimum value of £50 and tighter restrictions on the licensing of the sale of fireworks
Alan’s petition has garnered more than 68,000 signatures and is one of several campaigns that have led to the fireworks sale debate reaching the House of Commons today
‘Again, if the individual fireworks that were bought were a minimum sale of £50, that would have prevented those fireworks from being used in the way they were.’
In response to today’s parliamentary debate on firework legislation, the British Fireworks Association said it feared restrictions to fireworks would ‘deny responsible enthusiasts access to legal products’.
Steve Raper, chairman of the British Fireworks association, said: ‘Restrictions will create a situation where responsible enthusiasts are denied access to legal and safe products, while driving demand towards unregulated and potentially dangerous sources.’
