A NEWPORT schoolboy would have died almost instantly after petrol he was using to fill a motorised scooter caught fire, his family were told yesterday.

At an inquest into the death of 13-year-old Richard Hawrot, the boy's mother Jeanette asked Gwent coroner David Bowen if her son would have been "knocked out" before he caught fire.

Mr Bowen told her that in the consultant pathologist's opinion Richard's death on March 28 would have been almost instant.

The inquest at Newport heard how Richard, of Chichester Close, was staying at his friend's Toby Mills house in Jones Street, Baneswell, when the incident happened.

Toby's mum Rae Mills told the inquest today how she asked the boys if Richard's parents had agreed he could stay over even though she was going out. She said they told her yes.

Mrs Mills, who was going through a divorce and moving house at the time, added that her mother lived nearby and her friend lived next door but one.

She said she instructed the boys that they were just to watch television.

The inquest heard how the boys went into the enclosed backyard to put petrol in Toby's motorised scooter but the fuel caught fire, either from a lighter or a makeshift wire. Toby escaped with burns and was pulled through a window by a passerby but Richard was engulfed in flames, suffered multiple burns and died.

Mr Bowen said: "I am far from satisfied that this tragedy would have been avoided had Mrs Mills been present.

"I am satisfied that the fire, when it did occur, was both unexpected and unforeseen and therefore the proper verdict was that of accidental death."