A TERRIFIED mum has told how she feared for her own and her teenage son’s lives after a suspected arson attack on their house.
Charlotte McQuillan shares her Shelley house with partner Gary McQuillan and her 14-year-old son.
And Charlotte, 36, claims the family have been targeted in the past.
“It was absolutely petrifying and it still is now,’’ she said.
“We’ve had our property targeted in the past and our Audi and our van have been smashed up.
“I thought it had all died down but it has just got worse.
“I’m really scared that something else is going to happen.”
Charlotte, who is currently staying at a friend’s house, said she feels vulnerable and is too scared to return to the property.
She was upstairs watching a film in the bedroom and her son – who she has asked not to be named – was downstairs when the suspected arsonists struck at around 3pm last Sunday afternoon. Partner Gary, 41, was out of the house at the time.
Charlotte, originally from Liverpool, said: “I could hear all the neighbours outside the house shouting.
“I heard my name being called.
“They were shouting for me to get out the house straight away.”
The mum-of-one ran downstairs into a smoke-filled first floor desperately searching for her 14-year-old son.
She said a shed and a garden house had been torched and the fire had spread to the main home.
Charlotte, who is currently unemployed, said: “All the garden furniture was set on fire as well as the parasols and we lost all the fences around the house.
“There was about £16,000 damage in all”, she said.
“The property at the moment is really exposed because all the fence is burned down and there’s no barrier from the road.
“We can’t fix it because everything has got to be left how it is for insurance purposes.
“I really don’t feel safe to return there.”
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said a 40-year-old man and a 41-year-old woman have been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life.
They have been bailed pending further enquiries, he said.
