A fire at a house in Hull, England, which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by serial arsonist Peter Dinsdale.

Kingston upon Hull, usually shortened to Hull, is a historic maritime city and unitary authority area in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, 25 miles (40 km) inland from the North Sea. It is a tightly bounded city which excludes the majority of its suburbs; with a population of 268,852 (2022), it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region. The built-up area has a population of 436,300.

Peter Tredget, formerly Bruce George Peter Lee, is a British serial killer and arsonist. He confessed to a total of 11 acts of arson, pleading guilty to 26 counts of manslaughter. Fourteen of these were overturned in two separate appeals. Lee was sentenced to indefinite secure hospital detention in 1981 and remains detained as of February 2022.