A man who killed his ex-partner’s sister and her three children in a house fire has been sentenced to life in prison.
Sharaz Ali was given a whole life order, which means he will never be released.
Ali, 40, was found guilty in December of murdering Bryonie Gawith, 29, and the children, Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five, and Aubree Birtle, 22 months, on 21 August 2024.
Bryonie Gawith and her children Denisty, Oscar and Aubree
Antonia Gawith had ended an abusive seven-year relationship with Sharaz Ali and was staying with her sister when her former partner, “motivated by jealousy and fuelled by drink and drugs”, set fire to the home in Bradford.
Antonia managed to escape, but Bryonie and her children were trapped upstairs and died in the blaze.
Sharaz Ali. Pic West Yorkshire Police
Handing sentence at Doncaster Crown Court, Mr Justice Hilliard said Ali intended to “wipe out a family”, and the three children were “acceptable collateral damage” because he was “so full of hatred for Bryonie”.
The judge said that Ali blamed Bryonie for the end of his relationship with Antonia, and determined that if he could not be with her, no one else could.
He added that “substantial pre-meditation,” went into the murders, and said: “I’m sure, on all the evidence, that (Ali) had determined to burn down the house and anyone in it, including the children, if Antonia did not change her mind.
“She did not do so.”
Bryonie ‘determined to protect her children’
The judge added that Bryonie “acted with immense courage” by staying in the house, and that “although she must have known what Mr Ali was going to do, there was no way she was going to run out of the house and desert her children”.
“I hope that will be how her family will remember her last moments”, the judge then said: “She was determined to protect her children if she possibly could. She begged Mr Ali to stop but he completely ignored her.”
In a victim impact statement read out on Friday, Antonia described her sister as “my confidante, my best friend, my anchor”.
She said the attack “destroyed the world I knew and replaced it with an unbearable void”, adding: “I was the target… yet the violence that was meant to take my life took their life.”
Antonia added that recalling seeing their “lifeless bodies pulled from the fire is etched into my mind”, and that “I thought I might suffocate with the grief”.
“We spend our days next to their graves just to be near them,” she said.
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Prosecutor David Brooke KC noted that the murders were “particularly cruel” and that the jury had been “shielded” from what sounded like a child’s scream on the 999 call, which had been muted when it was played during the trial.
He added that the fact that Ali poured petrol on Antonia showed “an intention to kill through means that would have been excruciatingly painful”.
The prosecutor added that “it’s plain that at least one child did wake, sadly,” during the incident.
“Although the pathologist’s view is that the children would have succumbed pretty quickly, nevertheless the screams of children which were muted for the jury could be heard.”
Sunderland agreed to ‘extraordinarily dangerous’ act
Calum Sunderland, 26, who went with Ali to the house and kicked the door in for him, was also found guilty in December of the manslaughter of Bryonie and the three children, but cleared of the more serious charge of murder.
Callum Sunderland. Pic: West Yorkshire Police
He was also cleared of attempted murder, and an alternative count of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, in relation to Antonia Gawith.
Sunderland received a life sentence and was told he must serve a minimum term of 16 years in prison.
The judge said that he was sure Sunderland “knew the house was occupied” and agreed to an “extraordinarily dangerous” scheme.
“He played with fire and four people died as a result”, he said.
