Man who made firebomb threat would have been arrested ‘in an ideal world’ prior to fatal arson attack, inquest told

A police officer told a court it would have been better “in an ideal world” to arrest a man who threatened to firebomb a house weeks before he went on to murder a mother and four children in an arson attack.

Bolton Coroner’s Court heard how Zak Bolland, 26, smashed the windows of the home of Michelle Pearson, 37, where she lived with her young family on Jackson Street, Walkden, Greater Manchester, as part of an escalating feud.

Police attended, the windows were boarded up and a statement was taken from Ms Pearson, who named Bolland as the culprit for the attack on the morning of November 26, 2017.

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

Police were called to the house a second time, the inquests into the death of Ms Pearson and four of her children was told.

Pc Robert Webster, now a detective constable but at the time a probationary officer who had only been with Greater Manchester Police for six months, said Ms Pearson was “fed up and frustrated”.

He said she told him she was an anxious person and unwilling to go to court to prosecute Bolland over the smashed windows or the threats.

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.

Mr Webster said he did not at that time attempt to find and arrest Bolland, who lived a few hundred yards away in Walkden.

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.”

He agreed with Anna Morris KC, representing the Pearson family, that after taking a statement from Ms Pearson, when they left her home on November 26, there were grounds to arrest Bolland.

Ms 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 with officers.

He was released and told he was NFA’d – “no further action” would be taken.

Four days later, Bolland returned to Ms Pearson’s home, gloating, shouting he had been “NFA’d” and calling her a “grass” and a “rat”.

She again called the police and Mr 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 December 6 the crime report for the investigation into the threats made against Ms Pearson by Bolland had been “closed” on the police computer system.

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

Less than a week later, in the dead of night on December 11 2017, Bolland and an accomplice, David Worrall, 28, smashed Ms Pearson’s windows at the back of the house.

They tossed in petrol bombs which “exploded” near the stairs, blocking the only exit to the ground floor and trapping the sleeping family upstairs as the flames spread.

Demi Pearson, 15, her brother Brandon, eight, and sisters Lacie, seven, and Lia, three, all died in the blaze.

Ms Pearson suffered 68% burns to her body and “clung on to life” until she died, 20 months after the attack on August 25, 2019.

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.

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

Their trial heard attacks on Ms 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 eight-week inquest, which is investigating if there were any missed opportunities by the police or other agencies to protect the family, continues on Thursday.