A devastated family-of-five fears their ‘life has been destroyed’ after an intruder allegedly broke into their houseboat and set it alight in what is believed to be a case of mistaken identity.
For the last six years, Tess, 35, and her husband Akin, 33, have painstakingly turned their canal boat from an empty shell into a comfortable family home.
They always viewed ‘October’ – named after the month in which their first child Asa, five, was born – as more than just a floating residence.
Aside from the cosy internal living area, the 60ft boat was built to be a sustainable home, with solar power panels, a water filtration system and its very own roof garden, which was known for its lush array of tomatoes, strawberries, aubergines, cucumbers and potatoes.
There were also many other reasons the boat held such a special place in their hearts – for it was here on board October that the couple’s two youngest children Myra-Rae, 3 and Zephaniah, aged four months, were born.
But cherished memories might be all the family have left to hold onto after their houseboat, docked in Hackney Wick, east London, was set alight by an individual unknown to the family in the early hours of Saturday, May 24.
Thankfully, Tess and the children were away camping at the time, while Akin had gone out for the evening with friends. But when he returned, fire crews were already at the scene battling to put out the ferocious flames.
In that moment, Akin, who works as a digital health consultant, believed it could be ‘the end of everything’ – and was left helplessly watching from the bridge as October was consumed by flames.
A Met Police officer told the family afterwards they may have simply been unfortunate victims of ‘mistaken identity’ in a possible tit for tat boat-burning incident.
Now effectively homeless, the family has had to resort to staying for a few days at a time with friends after Hackney Council revealed there was no emergency housing anywhere in London.
As a single income family-of-five they say a mortgage is simply out of their reach, while the cost to restore the boat to its former glory could prove far too high.
Adding to their woes, they bought October in 2019 as an unfitted boat for £64,000 and spent the next six years transforming it into their ‘beautiful’ family home.
But they did not get it reassessed by their insurance before the boat was set ablaze – meaning they stand to only get a payout for its original value as an empty vessel and not what it could have been worth before the fire.
Determined to help them return to the life they one knew, friends of the family have set up a GoFundMe appeal to ease their financial burden, but the couple admit the tragedy could spell the end of their canal boating days.
Speaking to MailOnline, Tess explained how she and Akin first began living on canal boats nine years ago.
‘The lifestyle we have enjoyed with the children has been wonderful because you can be in London, but you’re also in nature.
‘You’ve got the marshes and the ducks on the water. There’s a really nice boating community and we’ve met many other families with young children.’
But that almost idyllic existence was brought to an abrupt halt over the last Bank Holiday weekend.
Recalling the events of that night, Akin said he was walking home after an evening out with friends when he could see an array of emergency lights in the distance and ‘a massive deal going on’.
He said: ‘A fireman stopped me and said: “Well, you can’t come through here.” But then I told him I live on a boat, so he walked me up to the bridge, pointed and said, “Is it that boat there?”
‘That’s when I saw my home was on fire. There were firefighters and police cars everywhere.
‘In that moment I just thought it was the end of everything. I couldn’t imagine anything surviving from what I could see – not much did.
‘But it was also this feeling of we built that. It’s not like we rented the boat. That was everything we had built over the last almost 10 years.
‘It just felt unbelievable to think everything was gone.’
Among the items destroyed forever were those steeped in sentimental value, including a teddy bear their eldest, Asa, has slept with since he was a baby.
Tess said: ‘I lost my great-grandmother’s jewellery box, which she had given to me and I was really close to her. So that was upsetting.
‘There was also a quilt, which is an old family thing, and also another quilt that my mum made for my son when he was born, and lots of things like that.’
Meanwhile Akin has lost many of his prized personal effects.
‘I’ve been DJing since I was 16 to pay my way through university – now all my DJ equipment has gone and my record collection has melted,’ he said.
‘All my musical instruments, the piano, my guitars, they were destroyed as well.
‘I enjoyed collecting sneakers since I was 20, and those have all been burnt up.
‘We hardly have anything of our own anymore.’
In the aftermath of the incident, the couple say returning to the fire-ravaged wreck has left them traumatised as they began to process what had happened.
‘The first time I went back I was in shock. Just the devastation was incredible.
‘Everything was gone, it was full of water and there was broken glass everywhere.
‘I had to go in again when the insurance surveyor came and looked at it, and I found that much harder. I came out shaking that time,’ said Tess.
Asa added: ‘I couldn’t recognise my own home. Part of me thought we had been broken into and robbed, but the forensics guy started pointing out computers, phones, water bottles. I didn’t recognise anything because it had all melted.’
For now, the family are trying to come to terms with the loss of their home as they decide what their next steps will be.
While they have been offered emergency housing, it would have meant having to move miles outside of London and away from friends, school and work.
‘The first thing my three-year-old asked when I told her about the fire was “has my nursery burnt down as well?”, recalled Tess.
‘I couldn’t take the children away from everything they know.
‘They’ve lost their home. I can’t have them lose everything else all at the same time.
‘So I was desperate to keep them at their school and in the community.
‘Moving away would also mean that Akin and I wouldn’t have any support or help, and it just seemed completely overwhelming.
‘But it’s hard for us, because every week we are having to find someone else who can host us. We understand that no one can put up a family-of-five indefinitely.’
Akin continued: ‘The insurance money might pay for rent for two or three years, but it’s not enough for a mortgage. That’s the real shock of the whole thing. We don’t really know how to restart.
‘People have discussed rebuilding the boat, but a couple of professionals we spoke to said the interiors could be very toxic, and we’re not sure we could afford to get it rebuilt and refitted.
‘Our friends and the boating community have been just overwhelmingly supportive and kind.
‘We’re just trying to see what our way forward will be.’
A 34-year-old man of no fixed address has been charged with arson with recklessness as to whether life was endangered. He is due to appear at Wood Green Crown Court next week.
