Firebomb threat would have led to arrest 'in an ideal world', inquest told

An inquest into the deaths of a mother and her four children has heard from a police officer that in "an an ideal world" the man who killed them would have been arrested for an earlier threat to firebomb their house.

Zak Bolland, 26, smashed the windows of the home of Michelle Pearson, 37, where she lived with her young family in Walkden, Salford, on 26 November 2017 as part of an escalating feud, Bolton Coroner's Court heard.

Police attended, the windows were boarded up and a statement was taken with Pearson naming Bolland in a statement as the culprit of the attack.

Later the same day, he sent Michelle text messages demanding £500 and threatening to petrol bomb her home.

Demi Pearson, 15, her brother Brandon, eight, and sisters Lacie, seven, and Lia, three, were killed when Bolland carried out his threat two weeks later.

The inquests were told police had been called to the house for a second time after the text threats.

PC Robert Webster, now a detective constable but at the time a probationary officer for Greater Manchester Police, said Michelle was "fed up and frustrated".

He said she told him she was an anxious person and unwilling to go to court to prosecute Bolland.

The officer said he told her if Bolland denied smashing her windows, it was his word against hers and if she was not prepared to go to court, a conviction was unlikely.

Webster said he did not at that time attempt to find and arrest Bolland, who lived nearby.

He said: "We were extremely busy, we were short staffed.

"It was the busiest shift I had attended up to that point. We attended one emergency call after another."

Webster agreed with Anna Morris KC, representing the Pearson family, that after taking a statement from Michelle on 26 November there were grounds to arrest Bolland.

Morris said four children lived at the address and threats had been made, suggesting taking action should have been a priority.

"Was the best safeguarding to arrest him?" she asked the witness.

The officer replied: "In an ideal world yes. There were other priority incidents we had to attend to."

Two days later, another police officer "closed" the crime investigation into the windows attack, after Bolland gave a 12-minute "no comment" interview, the inquests heard.

He was released and told "no further action" (NFA) would be taken.

Four days later, Bolland returned to Pearson's home gloating that he had been "NFA'd" and calling her a "grass" and a "rat".

She again called police and Webster was one of the attending officers.

He told the inquest: "We had to explain to her what NFA meant.

"She was upset by it, she just appeared quite puzzled why that had happened.

"She wanted Zak to be prosecuted for what he had done to her and her home. She seemed at that point willing and wanting to take the matter further."

But the court heard on 6 December the crime report for the investigation into the threats made against Pearson by Bolland had been "closed" on the police computer system.

Webster told the court the system did not appear to have recorded the identity of the person who closed it.

Less than a week later, in the dead of night on 11 December, Bolland and his accomplice, David Worrall, 28, smashed the windows at the back of the Pearson family home and threw in petrol bombs, which "exploded" near the stairs.

That blocked the only exit to the ground floor and trapped the sleeping family upstairs as the flames spread.

The four children were killed in the blaze. Pearson suffered 68% burns to her body and "clung on to life".

In 2018, Bolland and Worrall were both given four life sentences and told they would serve a minimum of 40 and 37 years respectively for the petrol bombing. In 2019, after Michelle's death, they were charged with her murder and convicted of it in 2021.

Bolland's girlfriend, Courtney Brierley, 20, was jailed for 21 years for four counts of manslaughter.

Their trial heard attacks on Pearson's home arose out of an escalating feud between Bolland and one of her sons.

She had called police on at least five occasions in the two weeks before the firebombing and had begged to be re-housed, the murder trial at Manchester Crown Court heard.

The inquest, which is investigating if there were any missed opportunities by police or other agencies to protect the family, continues.

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