A coroner issued a safety warning after hearing a house fire that claimed the life of a York pensioner was caused by a faulty TV set.

Maureen England, aged 62, of Hazel Garth, off Stockton Lane, died in April after suffering 46 per cent burns in the fire.

She was rescued by firefighters who fought through the blaze to an upstairs bedroom where she had collapsed on a bed.

But she died later in Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield. York Coroner Donald Coverdale recorded a verdict of accidental death on Mrs England.

"If one has a TV set that is not behaving as it should then rather than persevere, it is better to take the TV to someone to be repaired rather than to risk the disastrous consequences of a fire," he said.

It was the second tragedy to strike the England family - Mrs England's son, Mark, died in 1997 from an overdose.

Her other son, Wayne, made the headlines during the Falklands War when serving on HMS Glamorgan which was hit by an Argentine Exocet missile.

He told the inquest his mother had always been very careful about switching off her TV at night.

She had complained it was crackling, but when he challenged her to get a new one, she said it was all right.

Firefighter Trevor Lund said the fire was likely to have started from inside the TV set, because of the pattern of the damage.

He said Mrs England had been watching TV until the early hours , as was her habit, and may have inadvertently left the set on or on standby.

She took some sleeping tablets and was asleep upstairs in her room when the fire started, at about 2am.

She was probably awakened by smoke and by the smoke alarm outside her door about 3.50am.

Disorientated, she opened her bedroom door and was confronted by the fire, and stumbled across to the spare bedroom where she collapsed on the bed. The alarm was raised by neighbours at 4.15am and two firefighters, Alan Bell and Lee Smith, fought their way through the ground floor blaze to rescue Mrs England from the bedroom.

Mr Coverdale praised the firefighters for their courage.

"It may be that they regard it as all part of their working day, but it does take courage," he said.

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