Parents of tragic Aberdeen fireball boy reveal their agony and anger

“Abandoned, stigmatised and let down because we don’t live in a posh home”

The parents of a seven-year-old boy who died after being turned into a human torch on a Scots street are demanding a public inquiry into the incident.

Preston Flores was horrifically burned from the neck down in the incident in Aberdeen on April 18.

The brave schoolboy walked hundreds of yards engulfed in flames to get help and remained conscious and talking throughout his ordeal.

Now his devastated mum and dad, Keith Will, 32, and Luisza Flores, 33, claim “unanswered questions” and “worrying circumstances” surrounding the incident involving two other children and a local authority works van have led them to take the action.

Describing their son’s last days, the couple, who are suing Aberdeen City Council for negligence, hit out at the authority and Police Scotland.

They feel their home address influenced how they were treated and believe more affluent parents would have been given more information.

They claim police and council staff kept them largely in the dark about their investigations and failed to contact close relatives for them when Preston was close to death. They say no family liaison officer was assigned or counselling offered.

They also claim council workers failed to thoroughly clean the fire scene.

At her modest tenement home in the Granite City’s Powis Circle, filled with toys and cherished family photos, mum-of-five Luisza told the Sunday Post: “There are too many unanswered questions and worrying circumstances surrounding the fire.

“We have given the police lots of information, including the things Preston told his dad about what happened to him. Nothing has come of it. It’s as if they don’t believe us.

“We hope a fatal accident inquiry will give us answers.”

Keith added: “The only time we saw police was when they came to tell us they would be making no charges. We’ve had little or no information since.”

Clasping his distraught partner’s hand, Keith claimed: “The council didn’t even clean up properly after the fire. We are still picking up bits of my son from the street now, months later.

“It is because we’re from Powis and all the stigma attached to this place. It’s wrong. Luisza has lived here since she was a teen. It is home.”

He added: “If we were from the West End it would be different. But we are simple, working-class people. We don’t know how to cope with something like this.”

Preston died in hospital on April 22, four days after his clothes became doused in petrol and were ignited on the city’s Bedford Avenue.

It is alleged a petrol canister was left unattended on a local authority vehicle, a claim Health and Safety officials are investigating.

Trembling with emotion, Luisza relived the moment: “I was in the kitchen doing the washing. I heard people banging on the windows and the doors shouting ‘Preston is on fire, Preston is on fire’.

“I flew out. I had no shoes on, I ran across the grass and down onto the avenue. I noticed a crowd of people standing in a half circle. I pushed through and saw Preston. He was stamping his legs.

“He was on fire. His legs were black. His genitals and backside were burned off. He had held on for me. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I was begging please help him, no one did.

“Someone tried to stop me from touching him but I pushed them out of the road. His T-shirt was on fire and I ripped it off him.”

Breaking into sobs she added: “I took him by the hand. My bairn walked up 12 stairs holding my hand.”

Rescue services were on the scene in minutes and rushed mum, who had collapsed in shock, and son to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Luisza, who with Keith also has Leroy, 15, Shanelle, 11, and one-year-old baby Leighton, said: “Preston was conscious through it all. He was so brave. He told me ‘Mummy don’t cry’. He said ‘Can’t you just put cream on my legs and take me home?’”

Keith had been at work for an oil firm in Aberdeen when Luisza contacted him.

“It was rush hour,” he said. “I felt like driving on the pavements. All I wanted to do was to get to my son. At the hospital two people from social work were waiting. They got someone to take me up to Preston.

“A surgeon told us they had to sedate him and take him to theatre to clean the burns. He told me Preston had been waiting for me. I saw the burns through the cling film stuff they’d wrapped round him…”

Breaking down, Keith kissed a photo of his son.

“I love you my darling boy. I asked Preston if he was alright, and he said ‘I’m OK dad, I’m not feeling any pain.’ I asked him what happened and he told me. I promised him the doctors would look after him and he’d be OK.”

Keith did not know it then, but those were to be the last words he would share with his “beautiful little boy”. No more would they go together to Aberdeen Harbour to see the big boats.

Keith said: “Preston was put into an induced coma and airlifted to Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children where he was on life support. He never woke up.”

Surgeons told Preston’s frantic parents he had 85 degree burns. Keith said: “They were talking about amputating his right arm.

“His burned skin was contracting, crushing his internal organs and they said the only way to stop that was to take his skin off from the neck down, they said it was like peeling a grape.

“The surgeon said that in the next two weeks Preston would have to have 20 to 30 operations and may die on the operating table.

“Our choice was to make him fight, or let him go peacefully without pain. It was me who made the decision to switch off his life support. I still feel guilty about that now.”

He claimed: “My mum was with us but I asked police to knock on the doors of my dad and Luisza’s parents to let them know to come to Edinburgh.

“They started talking about shift changes so I hung up. A supervisor called and said his PC screen said Preston was stable.

“I said I didn’t have time to argue and phoned my brother who organised everything. We knew from that moment they weren’t going out of their way to help us.”

The family says no police liaison officer was assigned to them, a claim Police Scotland strongly deny.

Area Commander North Chief Inspector Nick Topping said: “The police investigation has concluded and as is normal procedure when dealing with incidents of this tragic nature a report was submitted to the Procurator Fiscal outlining the circumstances.

“This was an extremely challenging and traumatic incident for all involved and support was provided to the family and local community throughout. There has been no evidence of any criminality.”

An Aberdeen City Council spokesman insisted its social work staff did seek to offer support to the family after the incident, but added: “The City Council will be making no further comment at this time as the matter is subject to potential legal action.”

Keith sobbed: “I have to listen to my wife and daughter cry themselves to sleep at night. My sons are not the same. Preston did everything in life at 150mph. It wasn’t until he was gone that we realised what a force he was.”

His mother cannot visit his grave, but hugs the cross that was replaced by his stone and which she now keeps at home: “I can’t go there knowing he is in it. I would just want to lie down with him and cry. He is my baby.”