Police set to enter blaze house

Search teams could go into a fire-ravaged Shropshire home tonight to start looking for a missing millionaire and his family.

Also see: CCTV hunt in fire mystery

It comes after structural experts were this afternoon expected to start making the remains of Osbaston House in Maesbrook safe for officers to enter.

Detectives have spent the last 24 hours trawling through CCTV footage which could hold the key to what happened to Chris Foster, his wife Jill and their daughter Kirstie in the hours before the blaze broke out on Tuesday morning.

Police said they would not know whether the family were inside the property, which is near Oswestry, at the time of the blaze until the search was complete.

Engineers were seen examining the roof of the house from a raised platform today after firefighters worked for the last two days cooling the ruins of the three-storey property.

Meanwhile forensic teams were scouring through the charred remains of Mr Foster’s vehicles.

Deliberately

Superintendent Gary Higgins, from West Mercia Police’s Shropshire division, said: “Until we can enter the property, we do not know whether the family was inside at the time of the fire, which we believe was started deliberately.

“Once it has been deemed safe, which we are hoping will be either this evening or tomorrow, specialist search teams and forensic experts will go in.” Mr Higgins said the search was likely to last several days.

“It is a large property and there is a lot of debris inside which will have to be painstakingly sifted through and examined,” he said.

Friends of the Foster family, including many business owners, say they are devastated.

Tudor and Rita Griffiths, from Aston, owners of the Tudor Griffiths Group of companies, said Mr and Mrs Foster and Kirstie had enjoyed a 40th birthday party at the Griffiths’s home a few weeks ago.

Mrs Griffiths said: “We haven’t known them very long, only a couple of years, but we like them very much.

“We are desperately worried. They are a lovely family and everyone is very distressed. They are a very easy couple to get on with and very nice people to socialise with.”

By Crime Correspondent Kirsty Smallman