Mum, 53, who died in fire at Cosham petrol station after years suffering with ‘severe’ mental health problems, had meant to take her own life, inquest hears

Dylane Shaw died on November 2, 2020, after she set herself alight at the Cosham BP petrol station.

Known to her friends as Dee, the 53-year-old mum from Sixth Avenue has been described by family members as ‘caring’, ‘kind’, and ‘creative’.

Dylane’s family were not in attendance at the inquest, a decision senior coroner Christopher Wilkinson said was understandable as ‘this has been a very difficult event for her sons’.

Portsmouth Coroner's Court heard that on November 1, 2020, Dylane arrived at the petrol station in a minibus taxi.

She then filled up a jerry can with petrol, which she used to set fire to herself on the garage forecourt.

In a statement read out to the court, pump attendant Palanisami Mahendran said that he was the only staff member at the garage at the time.

Although he spotted the black taxi pulling up, he was serving another customer so he ‘did not pay much attention to it’.

Palanisami said he saw a woman ‘carrying a green petrol can’ leave the vehicle, and walk to a pump where she filled up the can.

He said: ‘The next thing I was aware of was the female was engulfed in flames. She was waving her arms around. I rushed from behind the till to the forecourt.’

Several people ran to help, bringing fire extinguishers to put out the flames.

Richard Goodall, known as Darren, is one of the witnesses who came to Dylane’s aid.

After spotting the flames, he ‘just ran straight towards the person’, pulling his T-shirt off to try and put out the fire.

He said: ‘I could see the person was in a very bad state.’

‘It was only 45 seconds but it felt like an eternity.’

Darren, who suffered a minor burn injury on his arm, said that the heat coming from Dylane was ‘almost pushing [him] back’.

The coroner said to Darren: ‘We underestimate the impact this had on other people.

‘Not everyone would run towards danger. You should be commended for what you did that morning. You did the best you could do.’

Paramedic Christopher Buglass was in an ambulance that happened to be nearby at the time, and he helped the patient at the scene before taking her into the ambulance.

Christopher spoke with Dylane as they travelled to QA hospital, and remembers the patient saying that she had set fire to herself ‘in an attempt to silence the demons and the voices in her head.’

After being transferred to a Welsh specialist burns unit, medics determined that as Dylane had suffered 86 per cent total body surface deep burns to the skin, her injuries were ‘unsurvivable’.

She passed away in the early hours of November 2, 2020, at Morriston Hospital in Swansea.

Dylane had a long history of mental health problems, having been sectioned twice, and evidence was heard from NHS Solent Trust services at court today.

They said that she would often not engage with the services’ attempts to reach her, and would sometimes not take her medication.

While Dylane’s family feel that more should have been done to help her, the coroner said: ‘I cannot see that the mental health services could have done much more.’

After going cold turkey from heroin, Harry Shaw, one of Dylane’s sons, said in a written statement that his mum had developed an interest in ‘paranormal investigation’ and ‘life beyond death’.

He pointed out: ‘Mum had been struggling with her mental health for years’.

As Dylane developed her interest in ‘psychic communication’, she began using a spirit box - a device, PC Sam Winmill noted in his statement, which ‘appeared to make [her mental health] worse’.

The court also heard evidence from police officers involved on the day, as well as other witnesses.

In his concluding statement, the coroner said: ‘Dee Shaw took her own life while suffering severe depression and manic type schizophrenic disorder.’

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Shortly after Dylane passed away, her family faced further horror as video footage from the incident at the petrol station, recorded onto a phone from CCTV footage, was circulated on WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter.

PSI Sophie Close of Hampshire Constabulary was involved in the investigation into the circulation of the footage, which was launched after police were alerted by members of the public who were ‘disturbed’ by the video.

Sophie told the court that the footage was removed from the sites it was shared onto, and her team tried to establish who had posted the video online.

There were two recordings made of the CCTV footage: one was created by a garage manager, who said she had been directed by her company to record the footage for training use for future staff - something which the police ‘strongly advised’ against.’ This video was not shared online.

Another member of staff had also recorded video footage, which was shared with some colleagues and a few friends for ‘awareness purposes’. This was the video that was shared online.

Sophie said that while ‘it is extremely morally wrong to have done this’, police ‘could not meet the points to prove a criminal offence’ and the investigation was closed.

On the topic of the footage being shared, the coroner said the decision to post the video online was ‘grossly offensive’: ‘I am quite aghast. One would have hoped that this had never happened.

‘It is incredibly upsetting for the family.’

Harry said: ‘I have been trying to move on from this awful part of my life’

He added that the ‘vile’ video: ‘will haunt me for the rest of my life.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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