POLICE say the focus of their inquiry into the deaths of a mother and daughter on Windermere of suspected poisoning will be a generator installed on the boat.

Det Insp Mike Brown, of Cumbria Police, told a press conference at lunchtime today that the generator onboard 'may have been' fitted to replace the one installed by the manufacturer.

Det Insp Brown was speaking as the police confirmed that the man onboard the boat was Matthew Eteson, aged 39.

He also stressed that investigators have not yet established who fitted the after-market generator.

"An after-market generator is causing some concern," said DI Brown.

"We cannot fully establish with any degree of certainty that that is the cause of any gas leak but that certainly looks to be a possibility.

"So we are looking how it has been fitted and looking at it with experts that know how these things work and what could have potentially gone wrong."

It is thought the generator may have been used to heat the boat in near-freezing temperatures.

Mr Eteson was the partner of the Kelly but not that the father of Lauren. Cumbria Police confirmed that he was released from hospital earlier today.

Police said the boat had been moored in Windermere just off Glebe Road at around 2pm on Monday and the family had gone into Bowness to buy food and then returned to the boat for an afternoon nap.

This morning, the mother and daughter who died from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning, were named.

Kelly Webster, 36, and her 10-year-old daughter, Lauren Thornton, both from Leyland in Lancashire, were discovered on a private boat along with a man suffering serious breathing difficulties.

Emergency services, including two air ambulances, were called to the jetty near Glebe Road in Bowness at around 4pm yesterday.

The two were treated at the scene and then airlifted to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary but later died.

Lynn Griffiths, president of the carbon monoxide charity CO-Awareness, said the deaths were ‘tragic’ and added there was a lack of public understanding of the dangers involved.

She said: “The public seem to think you can only be poisoned by carbon monoxide if you’ve got a faulty gas boiler, but it could be a gas cooker or bottles of gas on a caravan or boat."

Ashley Martin, from The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, said everyone should have CO alarms installed.
 

“Gas appliances should be checked and serviced regularly by a gas engineer who is on the Gas Safe Register, and only used where there is good ventilation," he said.

A spokesman for Cumbria Police added: "Police are not treating the death as suspicious."