Last updated at 13:26, Wednesday, 18 July 2012

A mum who covered her two-year-old daughter with a towel and carried her from their smoke-filled home said she heard laughing outside.

Deborah Donald outside her home

Related: Mum and toddler flee Cumbrian home after arson attack

“I had to carry her out of the window, she shouted ‘mama’ and she couldn’t see,”said 34-year-old Deborah Donald, from Wastwater Avenue in Workington, describing her escape from the blaze in the early hours of yesterday.

“I just heard laughing from outside.”

Ms Donald and her daughter Roxanne were woken at about 3am by the smoke alarm, to find the front door on fire.

She said they couldn’t get out of the door and she couldn’t find the keys to the back door, so she put a towel on her daughter’s head to protect her from the smoke and went out of the front living room window.

She said: “I was scared. I was hoping we were going to be okay. All the smoke and flames were horrendous. All you think about is getting out and getting your child out.”

The mum and daughter were taken to West Cumberland Hospital, Whitehaven but were both discharged later.

Her other child, Peter, three, was staying the night at his grandmother’s house.

She said: “It was lucky that Peter was there because I wouldn’t have been able to manage two children down the stairs. I am terrified of going back there. I don’t know what is going to happen next.”

She believes that a milk crate full of clothes for charity that she left outside the door was set on fire and that something else was set alight and put through the letter box.

She has lived in the house for about two years and this fire follows her window being smashed last week.

She added she was going to look into getting rehoused by her social landlord, Derwent and Solway.

Police Detective Inspector Mark Backhouse said: “ We believe this was an isolated incident and are investigating the fire as suspicious alongside the Fire and Rescue Service.”

Two women from Workington, aged 26 and 35, who were were arrested during the early hours on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life have been released without charge.

Anyone with information about the incident should call police on 101.

• A 34-year-old woman from Workington was today arrested on suspicion of arson endangering life and perverting the course of justice. She was in police custody this afternoon.

First published at 12:33, Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk