Akira Garton breaks silence on daughter's deaths at Goonengerry commune, Byron ... trends now
A grieving mum who lost her twin girls in a blaze sparked by an unattended candle has renewed calls for an coronial inquest as she shared new harrowing details about the tragedy.
It's been 18 months since Akira Garton's four-year-old daughters Ophelia and Tarrow died at a northern NSW commune while in the care of their father.
The girls were sleeping in a bedroom at a Goonengerry commune near Byron Bay in November, 2021 when a painting and candle burning just metres away fell onto a piano.
The girls were engulfed by the toxic fumes and choked to death as their father James Wright sat 50m away with others at a bonfire outside, unaware of the unfolding tragedy until he went to check on them.
Ms Garton says several questions remain, despite Coroner Karen Stafford declaring earlier this year that the twins' death was an accident.
Ms Garton woke up on her 35th birthday being smothered with hugs and kisses from Ophelia and Tarrow and their seven-old sister before dropping the girls off at her estranged partner's home the next day.
The next time she saw the twins was in a morgue at Tweed Heads Hospital, the place where they were born premature four years earlier.
Akira Garton has demanded more answered into the deaths of her twins Ophelia and Tarrow
'It was f***ed because this was where I birthed them,' Ms Garton told The Project.
'That drive, we're not going into the maternity unit, we are going into the f****** morgue.
'And I couldn't touch them because they were behind the glass screen. And that really hurt me. I couldn't even be with them.
'I just screamed and I screamed so loud.'
It was later discovered the smoke alarm in the room where the girls slept had been disabled with the battery removed.
Ms Garton says it's one of several unanswered questions surrounding her twins' deaths.
'I don't think they (police) investigated it thoroughly enough at all,' she said.
Coroner Karen Stafford ruled in January that she was satisfied there were no suspicious circumstances and didn't believe an inquest was required.
'Whilst leaving a naked flame in a room with a child, no adult supervision and no effective smoke alarm are matters of safety,
