Josephine Smith son calling for firework ban other than key dates

Josephine Smith, 88, died of smoke inhalation as a result of a firework being posted through her letterbox by Callum Dunne, from Shoebury, who was then 15, and Kai Cooper, then 18.

The pair threw fireworks at drivers and businesses in Harold Wood, East London, before posting one through Josephine's front door.

Josephine, who was hard of hearing, remained asleep in her bed at her home in Romford and was found dead from smoke inhalation hours later.

The teenagers were convicted of manslaughter and Dunne, of The Drakes, was sentenced at the Old Bailey to three years and eight months in prison, while Cooper was handed five years.

Jailed - Kai Cooper (Image: Metropolitan Police / SWNS)

Her son, Alan Smith, 55, has launched a petition calling for fireworks to only be available around November 5, December 25 and 31 and Diwali - and a ban on garden boxes under £50.

The boys were sold the fireworks by Mark Vardy, of Westcliff, in October 2021 - who gave them the products after being told they wanted to throw them in people’s faces.

Son - Alan with mum Josephine Smith (Image: Alan Smith / SWNS)

Alan said: "You can light fireworks from 7am to 11pm year-round. There's so much hatred around fireworks but largely that's because they are used year-round.

"Even for the fireworks industry's sake, if they were limited to those events, they wouldn't be getting as much grief.

"People can then enjoy them when they're meant to be used and they shouldn't be as readily available."

CCTV - Mark Vardy sold the fireworks to the teenagers (Image: Metropolitan Police / SWNS)

CCTV footage from 'Fireworks 4 U' shows Vardy recommended them to buy 'air bombs' after one of the teenagers said they planned to throw fireworks at police.

Vardy, 59, was given a 12 months suspended sentence earlier this month after pleading guilty to two counts of selling fireworks to a 15-year-old.

He repeatedly failed to hand over the incriminating CCTV to police and his son Luke Vardy, 29, handed over only snippets with no audio.

Alan's petition - which has reached 64,000 signatures - proposes a further three changes.

He would like to see Challenge 25 - encouraging workers to ID anyone who looks younger than 25 - made compulsory, garden display boxes to be a minimum value of £50 and tighter restrictions on the licensing of the sale of fireworks.

He said: "The shop's salesperson says to Cooper and Dunne in the CCTV that you can hold them and throw them and that's what's haunted me most.

"The two boys when they bought the fireworks clearly stated in CCTV that they wanted to throw them at police and terrorise people - that's the thing that's haunted us more than anything. So we need proper training and better education for store staff.

"Tighter checks on the legislation would be great - it's becoming a bit blasé on the way it's being handled."

"My mum was a lovely woman and the idea of the petition is just trying to find things that would prevent what happened to my mum from happening to others," Alan added

You can find more about Alan's petition here: change.org/p/change-legislation-around-sale-and-use-of-fireworks.