Police treating toddler’s gas blast death as suspicious

POLICE investigating the suspicious death of a child in a gas blast in Oldham may be dealing with a murder inquiry.

Jamie Heaton, 2, died when a massive explosion tore through his home and that of a neighbour on Buckley Street in the Shaw area of the town yesterday morning.

Neighbour Andrew Partington, 27, was airlifted to hospital with severe burns.

Police have “significant questions” for Mr Partington, who has officers waiting at his bedside for him to regain consciousness.

Sources confirmed a domestic argument involving the injured man took place in the hours before the blast, with his partner leaving their house with her five children.

Steve Heywood, Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, told a press conference: “We have had some information to suggest it may not be accidental so we are treating it as a suspicious death and therefore a homicide investigation is undertaken.

“There might have been some precursor event, like a domestic incident. All those things are still in our thinking at this time.”

Police said Mr Partington – a joiner originally from Rochdale who was recently made redundant, according to locals – was still under sedation and unconscious at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester.

Officers will have to wait until doctors allow them to question him.