Susan Lynch was making a cup of tea at her mum’s house and gazing out the kitchen window when her former husband Kieren Lynch burst into the garden with his arm alight.

The bricklayer threw petrol over her mum Jennifer’s face, head and back and seconds later, they both went up in flames.

Lynch died later that evening at Broomfield Hospital, after sustaining 97 per cent burns.

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Mum Jennifer Cronin had suffered 33 per cent surface area burns but never regained consciousness and died 17 days later.

A jury inquest concluded Jennifer was unlawfully killed while Lynch died by suicide - but poor communication by Essex Police had been a factor.

Echo:

Missed - mum Jennifer

Susan, a hairdresser from Benfleet, said: “Watching my mum get burned alive by my ex-husband - and being helpless to intervene - was exceptionally disturbing.

"She didn’t deserve such a painful and traumatic death. Mum still had lots of years to live and plenty of love to give to her grandchildren.

"My poor girls have got to live with this forever. Thankfully they have lovely memories of the person their dad used to be.”

The couple were married for 24 years and had two children, Matilda, now 17, and Molly, now 21, before Kieren developed a cocaine addiction.

Despite initially trying to help her husband, his volatile behaviour became too much and Susan ended the relationship.

She said Kieren appeared to get “back on track” but a year later, when they met to discuss co-parenting, she revealed she was in a new relationship - and he “saw red”.

Echo:

Killer - Kieren with the couple's daughters Matilda and Molly

In January 2018 he sent a string of threatening text messages, before going to the family home and smashing up the garden patio with a hammer. He was arrested for criminal damage but released on bail later that night with conditions not to contact Susan.

Lynch continued to send violent messages and called Susan and her family up to 80 times a day.

Susan reported it to the police, but Lynch was never re-arrested.

She said: "Each time I called, someone came to take a statement, it would take hours, they would promise they’d get it sorted, and then nothing ever came of it.

"Each time I called it was as if it was an entirely new case, so the police never put together a full picture of how badly things were escalating.

"Basic things like filling in a form to record the presence of children in the house which should have prioritised our case and had it escalated to a more serious level, wasn’t done.

"Or the fact that the situation wasn’t properly recorded on a handover by one officer which resulted in Kieren not being arrested and leaving him free to go onto do what he did.”

Susan, who is mum to Matilda, 17, and Molly, 21, took the day off work to go and comfort her vulnerable mum, who was frightened due to Lynch’s threats.

After arriving at her mum’s house in Benfleet on March 13, 2018, Jennifer took the dog into the back garden.

Susan recalled: “I was making a cup of tea standing at the window.

"In that moment Kieren came running down the garden, screaming his head off, shouting abuse.

"He was dressed all in black and his arm was on fire.

“He headed straight for her and she just cowered as he threw what I now know to be petrol - all over her: her face, her head and even her back.

"I was screaming and called 999 as I ran from the house.

"I was on the phone to the police the whole time, I tried to get back into the garden to see my mum but the neighbours were there too and tried to stop me from seeing what he’d done.

"By the time I’d got there Kieren had already set himself fully on fire too, he was slumped against a wall, so badly burnt, but I didn’t care.

"I went to my mum, she was totally bald, all her hair had been burnt off.

"But she was so serene, she told me she loved me. I think she knew she was dying.

"We just kept talking and talking until the paramedics arrived. As they tended to my mum I went over and just screamed and screamed at Kieron- I called him an animal - I was beside myself.’’

Lynch died later that evening.

Jennifer was airlifted to a specialist burns unit at Broomfield Hospital but never recovered.