A WOMAN spoke of the moment she lost her grip on a window and plunged from a roof in a desperate bid to escape from a fire allegedly started by her sister.

Weeping uncontrollably at times Rachael Bartlett described the moment she woke to the sound of her mother screaming from outside that there was a fire.

She described how she went to the Velux window of the attic room where she was staying at her mother's home in Bartley.

Rachael told jurors at Winchester Crown Court how she thought she was "dreaming" having survived a fire just over a month earlier at her father's home in Winsor, which prosecutors say was also started by her sister Cathy Bartlett.

Giving her evidence she said: "I could smell the fire, I could hear the fire. I thought I was dreaming.

"My mum was screaming 'help my baby!'

"I went to the door first to get out and I realised that I couldn't get down because of the flames were at the door and that is when I went into complete panic."

She described going back to the window and seeing her mum below "completely hysterical" whereas Cathy was looking at her "blankly".

She said: "She seemed really calm, really blank."

Rachael broke down when she described seeing the thick black smoke at the door.

"I just wanted to get out, I couldn't get out, I couldn't get down the stairs.

"I dragged the bed across and scrambled on to the roof."

Prosecutor Charlie Gabb asked Rachael, who said she had lost four and a half stone since the fire in the early hours of Tuesday April 7, how difficult that was.

"It wasn't easy. You just want to get out and know there is no way out. You get an energy, like adrenaline," she replied.

Rachael said she told her mum Frances to move a table below her so she could jump down onto it, but her mum said to stay where she was or she would risk breaking her back.

She said: "I was laid half over the window. The room was filling with smoke, the coats were starting to burn on the back of the door and I just let go."

Mr Gabb said Rachael fell onto the paved patio below where she was treated by paramedics. Asked what she remembered of the moment she regained consciousness after being knocked out by the fall, Rachael, 34, said: "I was trying to talk, my words were all mumbled. I couldn't feel my body at all. I was cold.

"I had been in two fires in under five weeks...what was happening? No one could tell me."

Rachael also explained how there was no one with her when she woke up in the hospital. She said it wasn't until she rang her dad that she was told it appeared she had started the fire with a discarded cigarette.

The initial police investigation found that petrol had been used and both Rachael and Bartlett were arrested on suspicion of arson.

Mr Gabb also took Rachael through a series of transactions on her company account for which her sister was the financial controller.

The prosecution claim Bartlett started the fires in a bid to cover up stealing more than £100,000 from the company account.

According to the records thousands of pounds had been spent on football matches at Southampton FC and Arsenal, along with stays at the Grand Harbour hotel in Southampton and England international rugby tickets; none of which Rachael said she knew about or had given approval for.

She was then asked about the relationship with her family after the fire which she said had completely broken down.

Rachael also described how her dad had asked her to take the blame for the fire to save her sister from a lengthy prison sentence, how he had arranged for her to speak to Bartlett on the phone and encouraged her to visit her younger sister in prison whilst she was on remand.

Rachael sobbed as she described how much she missed her sister, saying: "I felt I needed to see her. I needed to see if she showed any sign of remorse. I need to see her and look her in the eye.

"I was getting angry with my parents. I asked the same thing, why would you sacrifice me for her?"

Bartlett denies attempted murder, arson with intent to endanger life and 10 counts of fraud.

Proceeding.