Kevin Holmes

Kevin Holmes died after a fire was started in his flat.

He was found dead in the communal hallway of the block of flats that he lived in in Milton Road, Southsea.

A fire had started at the bottom of a stairwell and spread through the building.

He had died from smoke inhalation. His inquest heard that when his flatmate opened a door, the flames in the stairwell created a fireball.

He had recently moved from Liverpool to Portsmouth in August 2007.

A man was charged with his manslaughter but the charges were dropped during a trial that involved other offences. The man was a drug dealer who had made over £10m in four years. The court heard that he had ruled his drugs empire through fear and intimidation and that he used a progression of debt enforcement methods which started off with text messages being sent, visits by some of the bigger lads, and that if that didn't work there would be a nasty event. The court heard that a man that had lived in the same flats as Kevin Holmes had been selling cocaine for the drug dealer and that he owned the drug dealer £30k. On 17 September 2007 the man had gone out and got a kilogram of cocaine and gone back to the flat that he shared with a woman and that it was on that night that the flats had caught fire. Police had discovered the cocaine after the fire. The arson charge was dropped against the drug dealer but he was convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine and sentenced to 16 years.