Party that ended with deaths of Jan Wilson and Jamie Kyne

Just a few hours earlier, a party had been in full swing in one of the flats at Buckrose Court, Church Street, Norton. Young apprentice jockeys were celebrating getting their “pool money” from a local racehorse trainer. But those celebrations were to turn to tragedy.

Shortly after 2am on that fateful Saturday morning, a fire started in a stairwell in a communal entrance to the flats. Evidence was to emerge later in court that it had been deliberately started by 37-year-old Peter William Brown, in revenge for not being allowed to join in the party. It spread rapidly, trapping several of the residents upstairs. Two of them, young apprentice jockeys Jamie Kyne, 18, and Jan Wilson, 19, died in the flames.

Harrowing details were to emerge of what happened as the fire spread. Witnesses spoke of the panic and horror as the fire caught hold, of the windows blowing out, of flames shooting out of the upper floors, of residents jumping to safety. Among them were 19-year-old chef Chris Beresford and his girlfriend, 21-year-old Leoni Lenaghan, a hotel receptionist. Speaking only days after the fire, Leoni described how she and her boyfriend were woken at 2.15am by smoke alarms, to see black smoke coming under their door. “We just threw some clothes on, and jumped out of our window, which is about ten feet from the ground,” she said.

But the most heartrending details emerged during the trial. Jamie, from County Galway, and Jan, from Forfar in Scotland, were in a flat on the second floor of the block when the fire broke out, with Jan’s boyfriend, Ian Brennan, 20, and their friend, Dean Pratt.

Mr Pratt, who had been sleeping on the sofa, told how he was woken by Mr Brennan. The flat was full of smoke. He was beaten back by the flames as he opened the front door, and joined Jan at a window of the blazing flat. “She was calling for help. I was standing beside her,” he told the court. Overcome by smoke, and having trouble breathing, Mr Pratt said he had no choice but to let himself fall from the window. “I just had to get out. I was finding it hard to breathe. I had no choice.”

Mr Brennan, a young jockey, described shaking Jamie awake. “He kind of half-fell out of bed. I half grabbed him. He opened his eyes. Then the room filled with black smoke. You couldn’t see a thing.

I started coughing.” He crawled on hands and knees along a wall into his own bedroom, Mr Brennan told the court, then jumped from a window. His fall was broken by someone below.

We may never know why Jamie and Jan were themselves unable to leap to safety from the horror of that burning flat. Their bodies were discovered once the fire was brought under control.

Their deaths sent the town of Norton, and the wider racing community to which the two young jockeys belonged, into profound shock. Flags flew at half-mast at York races on the day after the fire, and thousands of racegoers observed a minute’s silence.

William Derby, the chief executive and clerk of the course at York, said: “To lose two people with so much to look forward to is a tragedy.”

Similar silences were held at race meetings at Thirsk and at Haydock Park, and at Stratford, jockeys wore black armbands.

In Norton, floral tributes were left outside the charred block of flats, while investigators from the police and fire service searched the interior. “There is a profound sense of shock that something terrible has happened in this community,” said Howard Keal, of Ryedale District Council.

Tributes began to pour in for the two young jockeys. Hundreds of people joined a Facebook site to pay their respects. Others left tributes on Bebo. Former champion jockey Kieron Fallon left flowers and a message of condolence at the scene of their deaths. “You will be missed every day,” it said. Tom O’Ryan, The Press’s racing columnist, penned his own moving tribute to Jamie, describing him as the “son I never had”.

“Seldom do you come across someone so young, so likeable, so down-to-earth, so natural in the saddle, so destined for much bigger things,” he wrote. “I still can’t take it in, still can’t believe I will never see him again.” Jan’s mother Margaret Wilson, meanwhile, spoke of her daughter’s love of racing. “She loved the horses and the people involved,” she told The Racing Post. “She adored doing what she did, and that does give us some comfort at our devastating loss of a most wonderful daughter.”

Horseracing charity Racing Welfare began collecting money to help survivors of the fire who had lost all their belongings, and to help family members of the two young jockeys with travel expenses so they could attend the funerals. Racing legend Lester Piggott was among those who made a donation.

Two weeks after the fire, Norton came to a halt to pay its final respects at Jamie’s funeral. Some 200 family, friends and fellow members of the racing community processed through the town’s streets to St Leonard and St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church for an evening vigil service. A wreath shaped like a racing cap and Jamie’s jockey kit were placed next to his coffin. Hundreds of people from the world of racing, and from the Ryedale community, attended his funeral the following day.

A week later, hundreds more people gathered in the Scottish town of Forfar for the funeral of Jan Wilson: a young woman whose “precious life” had ended “far, far too soon,” said the Rev Brian Ramsey. On November 27, Brown was formally charged with double murder over the deaths. His trial began on April 26 this year. Brown denied two counts of murder, and also pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and arson.

His conviction of manslaughter brings closure of a sort.

But the gaping hole that the deaths of these two promising young jockeys leaves in the lives of their families, and friends, and of the wider racing community, will take a very long time to heal.

How events unfolded after blaze

Saturday September 5, 2009: Fire and rescue crews are called to Buckrose Court in Norton at 2.15am and arrive to find the building in flames. Residents escape by jumping from upper storey windows. As the fire is brought under control, the bodies of Jamie Kyne, 18, and fellow jockey, 19-year-old Jan Wilson are discovered on the second floor. Jan Wilson’s boyfriend, Ian Brennan, 20, jumps to safety from the flat and is taken to hospital, but later goes on to ride at Thirsk that day. Police arrest Peter Brown, 37, then also a resident of Buckrose Court.

September 6: Tributes pour in from around the racing world for the two young jockeys, including messages from Kieren Fallon and trainer John Quinn. The two bodies are recovered from Buckrose Court as the police investigation begins.

Brown is released on conditional police bail.

September 7: Police appeal for everyone who was in the area of Buckrose Court at the time of the fire to contact them. Racing welfare charities set up funds to help those jockeys whose possessions were destroyed in the fire. Lester Piggott leads the donations.

September 17: The funeral Mass of Jamie Kyne takes place at St Leonard and St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Malton, before his body is taken back to his native Ireland for a private burial.

September 23: Jan Wilson’s funeral takes place in her home town of Angus in Scotland.

November 27: Peter Brown is charged with two counts of murder and appears before Scarborough magistrates. He is remanded on bail.

February 24, 2009: Extra charges of manslaughter and arson with intent to endanger life are brought against Brown.

April 27: Brown denies all charges as his trial gets under way at Leeds Crown Court.

April 28: The court hears allegations of how Brown threatened to “torch” Buckrose Court after falling out with residents of one of the flats.

May 7: The trial hears allegations of hatred between Jamie Kyne and Peter Brown.

May 12: An expert in the spread of fire tells the hearing the flames must have been started with a “large amount of material.”