A fashion designer and her two children have died in a house fire that destroyed their home in the early hours of St Stephen’s Day despite the efforts of her husband to save his family.<\/p>\n
Fionnghuala Shearman, known as Nu, died alongside her children, Eve, aged seven, and four-year-old son Ohner.<\/p>\n
Her husband, Tom, attempted to rescue his wife and two children but was beaten back by the severity of the fire and was taken to hospital for treatment. He has since been discharged.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Emergency services were called to a mid-terrace Cotswold stone cottage on Brimscombe Hill, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, Britain, at about 3am.<\/p>\n
Gloucestershire Police said the father, who survived the blaze, was a serving officer with the force.<\/p>\n
Detective superintendent Ian Fletcher told reporters outside Gloucestershire Police HQ said the mother and father had been awoken by the fire and had attempted to reach their children in the rear bedroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have been unable to get to the back bedroom due to the voracity of the fire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe father has smashed his way out of the house through a bathroom window in order to try to access the children\u2019s bedroom via the outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has been unable to enter the property via that bedroom window.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has then tried to re-enter the property through the bathroom window, by which stage the fire has taken hold in the bathroom and he\u2019s unable to get back into the upstairs bedrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has subsequently gone downstairs and tried to force entry via the front and the back door but has been unable to get back inside to the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is at this point our colleagues from emergency services have attended and have started managing and dealing with that fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.82910191.jpg\" "\\"Brimscombe")
Detective Superintendent Ian Fletcher (centre) said investigations are ongoing to establish the cause of the fire (Ben Birchall\/PA)<\/p>\n
Mr Fletcher said the fire was believed to have started on the ground floor and investigations were ongoing to establish the cause, but it was not being treated as suspicious.<\/p>\n
The extent of the fire has destroyed the roof, the ceilings and stairs, as well as causing other significant internal damage.<\/p>\n
A body of a woman in her late 30s has been recovered from the house, while the body of a child has been located at the scene.<\/p>\n
Mr Fletcher described the anguish the officer is going through at being unable to rescue his wife and children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not treating this as a suspicious incident at this time,\u201d Mr Fletcher said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would appear to be a tragic accident that\u2019s occurred in the early hours of St Stephen’s Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe surviving member of this family is a serving police officer at Gloucestershire Constabulary and again our hearts and prayers go out to him and all of his colleagues who know him very well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is working with us to try to understand what exactly has happened within that property.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Fletcher added: \u201cWe have multiple witnesses who describe the anguish that he was going through, his inability to get in and save his children and save his wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is, as you can imagine, in a very distraught way.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, lost his family at a time which is supposed to be a happy festive period.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.82910280.jpg\" "\\"Brimscombe")
A mother and her two young children died in the house fire (Ben Birchall\/PA)<\/p>\n
Temporary Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said: \u201cThis is an unimaginable tragedy and my thoughts are with our colleague, along with all of those involved and impacted by what has happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when we are all acutely aware of family and the joys that they can bring, my heart breaks at the indescribable pain that they must be experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr and Mrs Shearman were registered as living at the property.<\/p>\n
She ran bespoke handbag manufacturer Hide & Hammer making fashion accessories from leather and canvas fabric.<\/p>\n
A friend of the family told the Daily Mail that what happened was \u201cabsolutely shocking\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all shellshocked to be honest with you,\u201d they told the newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know what happened (to cause the fire).\u201d<\/p>\n
Nathaniel Hooton, deputy chief fire officer of Gloucestershire Fire & Rescue Service, said the house was well ablaze when crews arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was extremely challenging and they were faced with a well-developed serious fire on arrival,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.82910188.jpg\" "\\"Brimscombe")
Officials including councillor Chloe Turner from Stroud District Council, Detective Superintendent Ian Fletcher from Gloucestershire Constabulary and Deputy Chief Fire Officer Nathaniel Hooton from Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service described their s<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to make their way into the building, trying to rescue the occupants within that building, and also dealing with everything else that was going on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey tried their hardest to get in there and do whatever was necessary, and they continue to work extremely hard to support the recovery of the unfortunate loss of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the Gloucestershire Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said: \u201cThis is an unimaginable tragedy to have struck a colleague and their family and our hearts are broken for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is impossible for us all to properly comprehend and come to terms with what has happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federation are offering as much support as is possible to our colleague at this deeply saddening time.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fundraising campaign has so far raised more than \u00a365,000 (\u20ac74,600) for Mr Shearman. Donations can be made at:\u00a0https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/helping-rebuild-after-an-unimaginable-loss <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fashion designer and her two children have died in a house fire that destroyed their home in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,112739,4023,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-217108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-place-south-west","11":"tag-place-uk","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}