A SLEEPING tenant was rescued from a fire at a house where a murder was committed last year.

The fire in a house of bedsits in Maidstone, where 66-year-old Richard Cromarty was brutally stabbed to death in July, broke out on Sunday.

A neighbour called firefighters to number 67, Kingsley Road, at 5.11pm, when she saw smoke billowing out of the building known locally as “the notorious town house”.

It is also the former home of Michael Allen, convicted in July 1995 of the murder of 17-year-old Cara Hepworth

Fire fighters found the tenant asleep in his bed, having left the cooker on in the kitchen.

Assistant Divisional Officer Keith Burns, of of Maidstone fire station, said that the man had had a very lucky escape. He added: “We found the occupier asleep in his bed in a smoke-filled bedsit. He had left the cooker on after a liquid lunch.”

He urged people not to drink any alcohol while they were cooking.

The man received oxygen at the scene and did not have to be taken to hospital.

* Iraqi national Sherzad Muhamed is awaiting trial for the murder of Mr Cromarty on July 15.