A house where three young children were sleeping was firebombed and shot at in an attack that detectives are linking to road rage hours earlier.
Police said a petrol bomb made from a milk bottle was thrown through a family’s living room window between 2.30am and 3am yesterday, setting the downstairs of the house ablaze.
A couple and their three sons — a boy of three with cerebral palsy, his five-year-old brother and a one-month-old baby — were asleep upstairs at the time, while a 24-year old relative was sleeping downstairs.
At about the same time a gunshot was fired towards the house. The bullet missed and smashed through a neighbour’s window. All the residents escaped unharmed but police say it was only by good fortune that no one was killed.
The firebomb attack in Antill Terrace, Stepney, came less than three hours after a row involving a cyclist and a motorist in the street outside just before midnight on Wednesday.
A 40-year-old man, who does not live at the address, was trying to get on his bike after leaving a birthday barbecue at the house when he was hit by a black VW Golf, knocking him to the ground. In the scuffle that followed, the motorist suffered a cut to his head and was then heard to threaten that he would come back and “shoot” the cyclist. He left before police arrived.
At about 2.30am a gunshot was heard and emergency services arrived to find the house had been firebombed. The blaze was quickly put out by the fire brigade. Police are trying to trace the Golf driver, described as black and in his late twenties or early thirties. Detective Inspector Stewart Garrick, who is leading the investigation, said: “These cowardly attacks have needlessly threatened the lives of the occupants of two addresses.
“It is essential that anyone with information does make it known.” A resident of the street said today: “There was smoke billowing out of the front floor window of the house. “Three little children live there, but they were okay, thank goodness. I came down and said where are the babies’ but a neighbour was taking care of them.” A source at Tower Hamlets council said the family were “in shock” but had been rehoused immediately.
Anyone with information should call Limehouse police on 020 7275 4772.
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