A WRITTEN statement from Carl Whant’s grandmother, Sandra Mole, was read to the court yesterdaymorning.

She said she was woken up sometime between 7.45am and 8.15am on February 5 by a knocking on the front door.

Mrs Mole said: “The knock woke me up and my first thought was that it was probably Carl, as he often calls around for cigarettes.”

She said she answered the door and Whant was there, and he asked for cigarettes.

She told him they were on the microwave and he went and took six cigarettes from her packet and left.

She said he was there for only a “couple of seconds” but seemed “fit, well and sober.”

She said she could not be sure about the exact time as she had looked at the clock only when she got up and was not wearing her glasses.

The court previously heard Whant left a house party in Corelli Street at 5am on February 5 to go to get cigarettes from his nan’s house, but returned empty-handed at around 6.20am.

The fire is Miss Grender’s flat is believed to have started at around 5.30am.