A man who set fire to a Bradford family home in a calculated act of revenge, killing a young mother and her three children, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
At Doncaster Crown Court on Friday (6 March), Sharaz Ali, 40, was handed a whole-life order for the murders of Bryonie Gawith, 29, and her three children, Denisty, nine, Oscar, five, and Aubree Birtle, aged just 22 months.
Ali deliberately set the house on Westbury Road in Bradford alight in the early hours of 21 August 2024, after his relationship with Bryonie’s sister, Antonia Gawith, had ended.
His accomplice, Calum Sunderland, now 27, who forced entry to the home moments before the fire was started, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 years for four counts of manslaughter.
The court heard how the attack was fuelled by revenge and sexual jealousy.
Prosecutor David Brooke KC told jurors that Ali and Sunderland had driven to the Bradford address after filling a petrol can at a petrol station in Keighley earlier that night.
When they arrived at the house, Sunderland kicked down the front door at Ali’s instruction.
Ali then entered the property and poured petrol over Antonia Gawith, intending to set her alight.
Antonia managed to escape from the house seconds before Ali ignited the fuel. But inside the burning property were Bryonie and her three children.
The blaze quickly tore through the home.
Bryonie and her children were trapped.
Despite the desperate efforts of emergency services who rushed to the scene, all four died from injuries sustained in the fire.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Hilliard KC described the attack as a crime marked by “substantial pre-meditation and planning.”
The judge said Ali had been prepared to see the children die as “acceptable collateral damage” in his determination to destroy the family.
He also paid tribute to Bryonie’s bravery in the moments before the fire took hold.
The court heard she prevented Ali from reaching the upstairs of the house, an act believed to have been a desperate attempt to protect her children.
Ali himself suffered severe, life-changing injuries in the blaze.
But the judge told him he was “the sole author of his predicament.”
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Antonia Gawith spoke of the trauma she continues to live with.
“The events of that night have shattered my entire existence forever,” she said.
“The memories of seeing their lifeless bodies from the fire is etched on my mind with a permanence I cannot escape.
“Every breath since has been a struggle to exist in a world that no longer feels safe or fair.”
Sunderland, who fled the scene after forcing entry to the property, had claimed during the trial he believed he had only been hired to
help set fire to a car.
He told jurors he would never have gone to the house had he known Ali’s real intentions.
But the judge rejected his account, describing it as “untruthful” and warning that he posed “a significant risk of serious harm to the public.”
He will not be eligible for release until at least 2042.
Ali, who has previous convictions for kidnap, racially aggravated assault and drug offences showed no emotion during the sentencing hearing.
He is now among fewer than 80 prisoners in the UK serving a whole-life sentence, reserved only for the most serious crimes.
A third man charged in connection with the case, Mohammed Shabir, died in custody from a heart attack before the trial began.
In a moving statement released after sentencing, the family of Bryonie and her children said no punishment could ever undo what had been taken from them.
“Today the judge sentenced the monsters who killed our beautiful family,” they said.
“But no sentence, no matter how long, can ever heal the pain they caused.
“No sentence can bring back their laughter, their hugs, their voices, their love.
“No sentence can bring back four hearts that should still be beating.
“Every day our hearts ache with the emptiness they left behind.
“Bryonie, Denisty, Oscar, Aubree you are forever loved, forever ours, forever remembered and forever young.”
