A YOUNG family have been left homeless after their five-year-old son picked up a stray match and accidentally started a fire.

Little Kameron Fincher took a match from the kitchen of his Colchester Road home after his mum left the room for a moment.

He then took it upstairs and struck it, but when it burned down he dropped it and tried to cover it up with a blanket, which caught light.

The subsequent fire destroyed the upstairs of the three-bed home, leaving dad Adam, 27, mum Melanie, 25, and their four children Jordan, 7, Kameron, 5, Kyle, 3 and Annalyse, 1, homeless.

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