Murder inquiry over fire deaths

Shannen Vickers and Pauline Adams were found dead in a fifth floor flat

A fire in which a teenager and her grandmother died is being treated as murder, police have said.

Shannen Vickers, 17, and Pauline Adams, 57, died in the flat fire in Bethnal Green, east London, on Sunday morning.

A police spokesman said the blaze had been started deliberately and a murder inquiry had begun.

Two men have been arrested - a 19-year-old who handed himself in at an east London police station and an 18-year-old who was detained in Harlow, Essex.

The Metropolitan Police said the two men were being held at separate police stations in east London.

Fire-fighters discovered the two bodies in a rear bedroom of the three-bedroom flat.

Post-mortem examinations will be held at the Royal London Hospital later.

Neighbours had already managed to escape the fire-hit seven-storey building at Malmesbury House, in Cyprus Street by the time the emergency services arrived.