Two arrested over fatal fire

Two men, aged 44 and 21, were arrested today by detectives investigating a huge hotel fire which killed three people from Staffordshire.

The men were arrested on suspicion of murder and taken to police stations in Cornwall where they were being interviewed.

Last summer the blaze at the Penhallow Hotel in Newquay claimed the lives of Stafford teacher Peter Hughes, aged 43, pictured, and his mother Monica, 86. Both lived together in a bungalow in Cheslyn Hay. The other victim was Joan Harper, 80, from Stoke-on-Trent.

Today's arrests came less than 24 hours after police gave a new appeal for witnesses to the deaths.

Detectives said yesterday that painstaking inquiries by fire service investigators and independent experts had established that the fire was started deliberately.

Mr Hughes was forced to jump from the third floor of the hotel after trying to save Mrs Hughes, although it is thought he died from inhaling smoke and toxic gas and not from the fall.

More than 80 people escaped from the fire, which ripped through the building in the early hours of August 18 last year.

Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Boarland, of Devon and Cornwall Police, said there was no doubt that the blaze was arson.