Naked death fall woman 'may have been arson victim'

Police are investigating whether a woman who fell to her death from a tenth-floor flat was trying to escape a fire that had been started deliberately.

The woman died instantly after falling from the window of a flat in south-east London. Neighbours at the flats in Walworth said she had made a desperate attempt to flee a blaze that ravaged her two bedroom flat.

The thirty-something woman fell on to a grassed area at about 1pm before firefighters arrived. It is not known how the fire started but it was thought it began near the single woman's front door - her only safe exit.

Lorraine Williams, 38, who lives in a flat directly above the dead woman's, had to run from her home after it filled with smoke, clutching her two-and-ahalfyear-old child.

She said yesterday: "I was panicking because I thought the fire was in my flat. I had to run through thick black fumes to get into the stairwell. It was very frightening.

"I don't know why she didn't get out of her front door. She was naked so she could have been in bed when it started. Or it could have been that the fire was in the front of the flat and she couldn't get past it."

Another woman in Wendover House said: "We cannot work out why she jumped. If she couldn't get out of the door she could have tried climbing into her neighbour's balcony." Fire services and police are investigating.