Glasgow flat deaths were 'family of Russian asylum seekers'

The three people who fell to their deaths from a high-rise block of flats in Glasgow were part of a Russian family who were seeking aslyum.

STV News has been told that the three were a father, mother and son who had come to the UK in 2007 after originally successfully claiming asylum in Canada. They had run into a dispute with the authorities there and left the country.

Their apparent triple suicide comes after they had been told they had to leave their flat in the Red Road flats in Springburn following the refusal of their application to stay in the UK. However, it is understood no deportation order had been issued and they would have been allowed to take up alternative accommodation.

The father is understood to be aged 43. The son was in his 20s and the mother in her 40s.

The bodies of the trio were found at the bottom of a 31-storey block in Petershill Drive, Springburn, Glasgow, at 8.45am on Sunday morning. Their deaths are not being treated as suspicious.

It is believed the victims fell from the 15th floor of Block 63 at the Red Road flat complex, which were at one time the highest residential flats in Europe. Many of the flats, which are earmarked for demolition, are occupied by asylum seekers and refugees.

In recent years some of the flats have housed people from Kosovo, Africa, Asia, the former Soviet Union, Iran and Iraq.

Eyewitness Agnes Mulholland told STV News she saw the bodies lying on the ground before emergency services arrived.

She said: "Two of them were lying face down, but one of the men was lying face up. He had blood on his face."

Meanwhile, neighbour Carol Craig said: "They had been in that flat for about two months. I never met them outside. I saw them on Saturday morning for the first time. It was a shock, it was really a shock. It is a thing I can’t get out of my head."

Elizabeth Neilson, 42, who lives in the opposite block, said she was "traumatised" after opening her blinds and seeing three bodies lying on the ground.

RESOURCES

A Strathclyde Police spokesman said: "Inquiries are ongoing to establish the identities of the three people involved and post mortem examinations will take place in due course to establish the exact cause of death, however, at this time there does not appear to be any suspicious circumstances."

A spokeswoman for Glasgow Housing Association, which owns the flats, said: "We are very saddened to hear about the tragic incident at 63 Petershill Drive in the north of Glasgow. The police and the emergency services are continuing their inquiries and we are helping in every way we can."

Robina Qureshi, director of Positive Action in Housing, a charity which supports and campaigns for refugees and asylum seekers, said: "We are concerned about who these people are and whether they were claiming asylum in this country, whether they had recently been given a negative decision by the UK Borders Agency and whether they were our service users or volunteers."

Glasgow Springburn Labour MSP Paul Martin said: "This is a terrible tragedy and the thoughts of myself and the community are with the families of those who died in this tragic event."
 

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