A triple murderer who killed a mother and her one and three-year-old daughters by setting fire to their flat has been described as “a coward” and a “monster” by his victims’ family.

Jamie Barrow is being sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday for what was described as the “hateful” murder of Fatoumatta Hydara and children, Fatimah and Naeemah Drammeh.

Mrs Hydara, 28, and her children died after Barrow poured petrol from his motorbike through his next door neighbours’ letterbox in Fairisle Close, Clifton, Nottingham, and set it alight with tissue paper.

He then watched the fire take hold for several minutes before walking away, later being seen on CCTV walking his dog with a cigarette in his mouth in the early hours of November 20 last year.

Aboubacarr Drammeh, Mrs Hydara’s husband and father of Fatimah and Naeemah, said in a victim impact statement in court that Barrow was “a coward who knew exactly what he was doing and exactly when to do it”.

He said: “My trip to the UK that rainy afternoon on November 21 was unplanned. I was escorted to the ICU and Fatoumatta was in an ICU bed. I stood there, I watched the movement on the monitor.

Aboubacar Drammeh spent his 40th birthday in a hospital mortuary identifying his loved ones, after being in America at the time of the fire (Family handout/Nottinghamshire Police/PA)
Aboubacarr Drammeh spent his 40th birthday in a hospital mortuary identifying his loved ones, after being in America at the time of the fire (Family handout/Nottinghamshire Police/PA)

“I was hopeless, and I was left helpless, because I didn’t have a family, and it was the people who mattered most to me.

“Since then, it has been a downward plunge into darkness and the unknown.

“It was unthinkable, it was unplanned, and I wish this on no one else, including you.”

Mr Drammeh, who was working in America at the time of the blaze, was due to return to the UK a week after the blaze so the family could attend an interview for their visa application at the US Embassy in London, as part of their plans to emigrate.

Instead, he flew back to the UK and spent his 40th birthday identifying his children’s bodies in a hospital mortuary.

He said: “Two little angels, their lifeless bodies laying next to each other. I held their whole hands. I wished I could switch with them.

“Only Allah knows why. I have to accept and prepare for the next chapter of my life. All I can say is I am sorry.

“I was not there, I should have been.

“I had a responsibility as a father and a husband to protect, that was my basic responsibility. I make no excuses.

“Because of you, and only you, I failed in my only responsibility as a father.”

Several of the victims’ family members, who have attended court throughout proceedings, wept as Mr Drammeh delivered his statement over the course of almost an hour.

In a second statement from Mrs Hydara’s mother, Aminata Dibba, read by junior prosecutor Sarah Knight, Barrow was described as “heartless”.

She said: “The day I found out my granddaughters’ lives had been taken by this monster, it felt like at that moment I would do anything to swap my life for theirs.”

Jamie Barrow (Nottinghamshire Police/PA)
Jamie Barrow was convicted of murder (Nottinghamshire Police/PA)

Four members of the 11-person jury, who deliberated for almost seven hours before convicting Barrow of murder, also returned to watch the sentencing.

They unanimously found Barrow guilty of the murders and also a count of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered after the defendant had previously admitted manslaughter.

He had denied murder on the grounds that he thought the flat was empty when he lit the fire.

The judge, Mrs Justice Tipples, also heard submissions from prosecution and defence counsel prior to the lunch break.

In his sentencing remarks, prosecutor Simon Ash KC accepted that “the defendant took a decision and acted on it almost straightaway,” but said that Barrow had “taken a series of preparatory steps”, such as siphoning petrol from his motorbike, and was acting “thoughtfully and deliberately in a calculated way”.

He said: “At about 5am in the morning on November 20, when speaking to the Housing Officer, (Barrow) asked whether he could claim compensation from Nottingham City Homes if any of his belongings were damaged by smoke.

“That conversation happened at a time when Mrs Hydara and the children had been brought out of the flat and were at the Queen’s Medical Centre and were either dead or in a very serious condition.”

Christopher Henley KC, mitigating on Barrow’s behalf, said: “Jamie Barrow is realistic that anything I say on his behalf about his remorse and his regret will sound pretty hollow and will provide precious little, if any, comfort to anyone who loved Fatoumatta Hydara, Fatimah Drammeh and Naeemah Drammeh.

“Jamie Barrow’s focus was principally on himself, his own struggles. His mental health was in crisis, it had been in the days following the time he spent with his son.

“He was going through a particularly bleak period.”

The judge will hand down her sentence at 2.30pm.