The mum of two boys who died in a house fire told how she wakes in the middle of the night to their cries as a landlord in court over their deaths admitted a lesser charge than he originally faced.

Kamal Bains has been on trial at Leeds Crown Court after pleading not guilty to unlawfully killing Logan Taylor, aged three, and Jake Casey, aged two.

The 51-year-old, who was facing two manslaughter by gross negligence charges, pleaded guilty to an alternative charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 mid-way through the two-week trial.

Logan and Jake died on February 20, 2016, after a fire started in their bedroom at their family’s rented semi-detached property in Alder Street, Fartown.

The house in Alder Street, Huddersfield, where brothers Jake Casey, two, and Logan Taylor, three, died after a house fire (Picture by Chris Neill)

Property management company director Bains worked for the now-defunct property management company Prime Property Estates (Yorkshire) (PPE), which maintained around 140 homes in the Huddersfield area on behalf of private landlords for a 10% cut of the rent.

He said the three-bedroom house did have fire alarms and maintained this claim during the trial.

But Leeds Crown Court previously heard how the boys’ mother Emma Taylor asked him to install fire alarms in the house ‘time after time’ and it was an ‘eminently’ avoidable tragedy.

The public gallery was packed with family members, including the boys’ parents, for a sentencing hearing which will conclude tomorrow.

Follow live updates from the sentencing here.

In an emotional victim personal statement read to the court, Ms Taylor, who had tried to save the boys but was overcome with smoke, said her life has been ‘turned upside down’.

She said that she has not had a solid’s night sleep since the fire and she wakes up in the middle of the night to her boys crying, but they are not there.

She relives the moment when she could not get to them ‘over and over’.

She said her former house held too many memories and said she had to move out of the area.

Prosecutor Allan Compton previously said tests conducted by investigators showed Ms Taylor would have had five minutes to rescue her two boys if an alarm had been fitted.

Dad Jamie Casey said the couple’s older son Finley, who escaped the fire with his mum, was ‘best friends’ with his brothers and is ‘heartbroken’.

He said: “How do you explain to an eight-year-old that they’re not coming home?”

Bains admitted his company was understaffed and said: “We were struggling to keep up with the repairs on the bad properties, to be honest with you.”

Mr Compton described the defendant’s actions as ‘inexcusable’ and said that if Bains was struggling he could have contacted West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) or the council for help to fit smoke alarms.

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Tyrone Smith QC, mitigating, said his client had done other work to the property, and PPE had been sold and renamed.

After Mr Justice Males said Bains could get up to 10% credit for his guilty plea, Mr Smith said if the judge was going to impose a prison sentence he should consider suspending it.

The judge retired to consider the verdict overnight. Bains will be sentenced at 10.30am tomorrow.

New laws came into force in October 2015 which meant it was mandatory for smoke alarms to be fitted on all floors of rented properties.

WYFRS had previously said they believed this would be the first prosecution of this nature in the country since the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 were introduced.