Strictly Come Dancing presenter Claudia Winkleman has spoken for the first time about the serious burns her eight-year-old daughter Matilda suffered in a Halloween costume fire last year. The incident occurred when Matilda's witch costume brushed against a candle at a house in London.
Describing the moment to BBC One's Watchdog programme, Winkleman said: 'We couldn't put her out. Her tights had melted into her skin.' She added: 'She went up, is the only way I know how to describe it. It was not like fire I had seen before.'
Matilda has since undergone several operations. Her surgeon, Jorge Leon-Vallapalos of London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, is calling for tougher fire safety laws on fancy dress outfits, which are currently classed as toys rather than clothes. He noted a 'mini epidemic' of paediatric burn injuries at certain times of the year.
Accident statistics show that 94 people in England were admitted to hospital last year after their clothing ignited or melted, including 21 children under 18. Watchdog's investigation, to be screened on Thursday, will test the flammability of several high street costumes, with what it describes as 'shocking results'.
Winkleman, who missed part of last year's Strictly Come Dancing series after the accident, said: 'It's life-changing but not life defining. I would like parents to – just on Halloween, just to think about what they're going to put their kids in because I didn't, and it cost us.'
