SHOCKING footage captures the huge inferno after a hooded attacker torched a Solihull family’s mobility scooter – leaving two disabled people with no transport.
We spoke with disabled mother-of-six Kirsty Shaylor, 45, who says she cannot sleep and is too scared to return to her home in Melton Avenue in the Lyndon area.
The terrifying arson attack happened in the early hours of July 18 and West Midlands Police is investigating.
The footage shows the hooded person creeping on to the drive, then appearing to douse the scooter in liquid.
As the porch light comes on the drive is engulfed in flames – as is the arsonist who manages to escape.
Ms Shaylor and her five-year-old son, Alfie, are now staying with her mum who also used the £1,600 mobility scooter – purchased using the family’s last savings.
The family, including Ms Shaylor’s mum who had fallen ill and has mobility issues, slept through the explosion on the front drive.
Ms Shaylor suffers from fibromyalgia – a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body – and does not know how she will replace the vital scooter.
A tearful Ms Shaylor said: “In the morning, my partner told me the mobility scooter had been blown up, so I grabbed my phone and checked the cameras and then just screamed.
“It’s just shocking. If I had enemies or something I would know who it is and what’s going on.
“And because I’m mostly on that scooter it feels like I’m being targeted and I feel scared to go back home.
“I don’t want to be in the Midlands anymore. I can’t eat or sleep.
“When I go to sleep it’s like I can hear someone pouring petrol.”
Ms Shaylor usually lives at home with her partner, her sons – one five and one 15 – and her dog and two cats.
She told us she was seriously struggling to recover from the recent deaths of her brother and another baby son.
She wants to thank those in an ambulance who drove by and called the fire brigade, otherwise she feels the blaze could have spread to the house.
She has made a desperate appeal for donations to purchase a new scooter for the family to use.
She added: “My disability allowance is only £100 a month. My dad had to sell his car to buy us the scooter. It had just had new batteries put in which cost £300.
“We don’t know how we’re going to cope.”
A spokesperson for West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service said: “The fire is believed to have been started deliberately.”
Anyone with information should contact police via Live Chat at west-midlands.police.uk between 8am and midnight or call 101 anytime, quoting 20SH/170312B/19.
