Bryonie Gawith, 29, and her children Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle, perished in the fire that was deliberately started by her sister’s jealous ex
A mother and her children faced several terrifying hours before they died in a blaze that tore through their family home. Bryonie Gawith, 29, and her children Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle, perished in the fire in Bradford in the early hours of August 21, 2025.
Today (March 6), her sister’s ex Sharaz Ali was handed a whole life term for murdering the family in a revenge attack. Prosecutors said Ali started the fire while “fuelled by drink and drugs” at the time.
He had been dating Bryonie’s sister Antonia Gawith – who was also in the property on Westbury Road when it set alight. Antonia was sharing Bryonie’s bedroom on the night after finishing a shift at Tesco.
Ali began messaging Antonia accusing her of being with another man. She told police in the interview that Bryonie had told her to ignore him and started to fall asleep.
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“I never thought he’d come and do that. Why would he do that?” she said to officers at the time. Antonia then heard the doorbell ring downstairs and anxiously headed to the front door.
That’s when she discovered her ex and another man – Calum Sunderland – had kicked the door down. “(Ali) started pouring petrol on me. I was saying ‘please don’t, I love you, I’ll come back, don’t do this’.”
But despite begging, his rampage continued. She told officers how she tried to grab the lighter from Ali’s hands before running out of the house, assuming he would be close behind.
However, when she turned to look Ali had set the staircase on fire as Bryonie attempted to protect her children by kicking him down the stairs. “I pulled the petrol off him and tried to get him out, and then he hit the lighter. I seen him set on fire, and all the stairs, and my sister,” Antonia said.
The fire erupted fast as Antonia attempted to get her sister out of the house. Antonia said Bryonie, who had rung 999 while coming down the stairs, then threw her phone out of the window and she picked it up, shouting down the line “telling them to send everybody – the police, ambulance, fire brigade”.
“I was just screaming, trying to get back in the house and I couldn’t get in. I couldn’t save them,” she said through tears.
Ali was quickly arrested as police arrived on scene, but by the time the fire service arrived it was too late to save Bryonie and her children. Antonia recalled how Ali was “controlling” throughout their relationship, and had tendencies to drink and taje drugs.
She had left the relationship weeks earlier, with Ali seemingly blaming her sister Bryonie for being the one to sway her to call it quits. She was asked by prosecutor David Brooke KC about a message Ali had sent her in the days before the fire which said: “I’ll be gone in two days. Remember your so-called friend will not look at you again in two days and that I promise.”
Antonia was asked about another message from Ali which said: “I know who has caused this in my life, whether they meant to or not. Better start praying cos now I’m going to get involved in her life and everyone is going to feel it. I promise you one thing, they’re going to regret it.”
Antonia replied she thought the messages must have referred to her sister because they had been staying together at the time, and that she felt he “blamed” Bryonie for her part in ending the relationship.
At the sentencing, the judge said Ali was motivated by “revenge and sexual jealousy” and that he is convinced there was “substantial” pre-meditation and planning behind the murders.
Noting the defendant’s severe injuries he says his life would be difficult whether he was in custody or not. “He is the sole author of his own predicament,” he concludes. “It was part of a plan to wipe out a whole family.”
Calum Sunderland, 26, was convicted of four counts of manslaughter for his part in the crime. He had helped Ali fill up a cannister with fuel, then helped him drive to the home, before fleeing.
Representing Sunderland, who was convicted of four counts of manslaughter, Nicholas Worsley KC repeats his client’s position during the trial that he believed he had been recruited by Ali on the night in question to burn a car.
When he discovered Ali’s true intentions, Worsley says Sunderland turned to Ali and said: “Are you mad?” Noting his client knows he is facing a long term in prison, Worsley reads out a letter of apology Sunderland sent to the Gawith family.
“There is nothing I can say to bring them back, nothing I can say or do to stop the pain or hurt you’re all feeling,” the letter says. “Kicking that door down will forever be the biggest mistake of my life.”
The family of Bryonie, Denisty, Oscar and Aubree have released the following statement: “Today, the judge sentenced the monsters who killed our beautiful family, Bryonie, and her three children Denisty, Oscar, and Aubree.
“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. Every day, we feel the weight of their absence, the joy we lost, the moments that will never come. Every day, we remember them, the love, the light, the life, they gave to us so briefly, so beautifully.
“We carry them in every heartbeat, every tear, every memory, every act of love. They live in us, and through us, they will never be gone. Bryonie, Denisty, Oscar, Aubree, you are forever loved, forever ours, forever remembered and forever young.”
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