Woman relives horror of smoke grenade attack

8:13am Saturday 11th October 2008

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A TERRIFIED woman was left fearing for her life after yobs threw a smoke grenade into her house, filling it with fumes.

Julie Lupton believes youths using a cut behind her house opened her door to throw the incendiary device into her hallway.

Ms Lupton, of Warwick Square, in the Branksome area of Darlington, was alerted to the incident at 9.15pm on Thursday when her fire alarm went off.

She opened the door from her kitchen to her hallway, to discover her house was filled with thick smoke.

She said: “I had just sat down to watch the television and was having my tea. I went into the kitchen and the smoke alarm went off downstairs.

“I opened the door and could not see at all for the thick smoke.

“I was frightened because I thought there was a fire.”

Ms Lupton, 48, who was in the house with her boyfriend, thought her house was on fire and that the lights had gone out, so thick was the smoke.

She went to retrieve a torch from a cupboard underneath her stairs to find her way out of her home before she realised the lights were still working.

After she left her home, she asked her neighbours, whose home had also been partly filled with smoke, to alert the fire brigade.

She said: “I think it is horrible.

I have been to the council. For years it has been terrible with drugs and this and that. There should be cameras up.

“Where I live, it is a bit of a getaway for people. There is a park behind me and there are cuts leading into different streets.

“On the side of my house, there is a cut.

“I think it is awful. If it had been an old person, they would have died because the smoke was that bad. You couldn’t see.”

A crew from Darlington fire station were called out to the house, but the device only filled the property with smoke and left a scorch mark on the laminate flooring.

However, firefighters said had the house been carpeted it would have been set alight by the heat of the device.

Police have seized the grenade, which is believed to be one used for paintballing and emits theatrical smoke. They will carry out forensic investigations and try to find out from where it was bought.

Police and council-uniformed warden patrols will be stepped up in the area.

Inspector John Zissler, from Darlington police, said house-tohouse inquiries had been conducted.

Officers were also looking into reports of a car being tipped onto its side in nearby Nickstream Lane. The two incidents are not being linked.

Anyone with any information is asked to call police on 0345-60-60-365 or 0800-555-111.