A FRESH appeal by detectives aims to finally bring to justice the heartless killers of a much loved family man - a decade to the day after his tragic death.

Police insist someone must know who was responsible for deliberately starting a fire at the home of James Tomlin, claiming his life.

Ten years after his murder, they are urging them to reveal what they know.

Mr Tomlin, 36, died when an arsonist poured kerosene through the letterbox, at his home in Prospect Grove, Windhill, Shipley, and set it alight, in the early hours of August 15, 2005.

The engineer was trapped in a back bedroom and smashed a window and leaped into the back yard to escape. He suffered a cardiac arrest, but a post-mortem examination established Mr Tomlin died from inhalation of smoke and gases from the fire.

His partner, Sonia Chadwick, then 26 and six months pregnant with their child, and their two sons, Scott and Dominic, then aged six and four, were trapped in the front bedroom.

Miss Chadwick made a frantic 999 call and followed the instructions of call operator Emma Sutcliffe to stay low to the ground. She and the children were rescued by firefighters, who were on the scene within two minutes. An inquest in 2012 heard they had been seconds from death.

At the time of the arson, Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan, who was leading the investigation, said the murder appeared to be motiveless and he could not rule out that the wrong house might have been targeted. He made it clear that Mr Tomlin was not a criminal, or involved in the drugs scene.

West Yorkshire Police is now planning to review the case.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark McManus, of the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, said: "It is now ten years since James's death, and our detectives remain as determined as ever to find out who was responsible and bring them to justice.

"We still believe that person will have disclosed their actions on that night to others, and would ask for anyone with that information to come forward and tell us what they know.

"We have seen that, despite the passage of years and even decades, historical cases can be solved and West Yorkshire Police is committed to finding the answers that people like James's family and friends, are so desperately seeking.

"Unsolved cases are never closed and any new evidence will be reviewed by our team of investigators, who are now able to look at these cases with modern forensic technology.

"There is also the possibility that allegiances may have changed in this time, so I would ask anyone with any information to contact the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team on 101, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111."

Mr Tomlin's family did not want to comment about the new police appeal.

But at the time of the tragedy, Miss Chadwick described Mr Tomlin as her soulmate who could not be faulted as a dad to their children.

She said: "We all love and miss James so much and always will."

Councillor Vanda Greenwood (Lab, Windhill and Wrose) said: "I am really pleased the police are putting out this new appeal.

"We still know very little about this, but somebody out there somewhere does know who did it and why they did it, and they need to come forward with that information. It was a tragic situation and the sooner the people responsible are caught, the better.

"There are still a lot of questions to be answered. Ten years may seem a long time, but Mr Tomlin's loved ones won't forget, or get over it. They will have been wanting to know for ten years who did this, and rightly so.

"It is a very close-knit community, and if anyone knows any information, however inconsequential it might seem, they must tell the police."