A MAN set fire to the home of a woman he met through a dating website, causing more than £17,000 of damage and killing two pets, a court was told.

Shaun Blud, 42, of Dunstable Road, Newport, is on trial at Cardiff Crown Court charged with arson with intent to endanger life and an alternative charge of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

He denies both charges.

Prosecutor Mike Hammett told the jury Blud met Susan Belcher on a dating website last summer. Ms Belcher said they were just friends but their friendship came to an end a week before the fire.

At the time Ms Belcher lived in Greenmeadow Way, Cwmbran, with her son Thomas in a house owned by Bron Afon Community Housing. The court was told Blud had been at Ms Belcher’s at the start of December to collect property he said he’d left there when an argument broke out between the pair and Blud allegedly told Ms Belcher: “You better be careful” and warned her it was not a threat but a promise.

Mr Hammett said that during the early hours of December 10, Blud, who had been out drinking, drove to the Texaco garage, Chepstow Road, in his dark blue Ford Fiesta where he bought a petrol can and filled it with petrol before filling his car with seven litres of diesel. He also bought a box of matches and a can of Diet Coke. The receipt showed a time of 3.06am.

He said neighbours in Greenmeadow Way were woken in the early hours of December 10 when they saw Ms Belcher’s house was on fire. Ms Belcher was at a friend’s at the time while her son, then six, was with his dad. Ms Belcher’s toy poodle Lily and her parrot Sidney were both killed in the blaze. Her two other pets, a Chihuahua-cross Yorkshire Terrier, Scooby, and a cat, Womble, survived.

Neighbour Susan Sutton told the jury she had heard male voices and saw a dark car driving at speed away from the scene before seeing the house was on fire.

Firefighters arrived at 3.24am. Investigations found the likely cause of the fire was a flammable liquid being put through the letterbox which was ignited. Analysis of the fire debris showed it contained petrol.

Proceeding

Woman tells court of ‘quite threatening’ messages

GIVING evidence, Susan Belcher said she had met Blud on dating website ‘Plenty of Fish’ but told him she just wanted to be friends.

She said they had a good friendship but it came to an end after they had an argument in a supermarket.

After going to her friend’s on December 9, she only found out about the fire at around 3pm on December 10 when she charged her phone and had a call from her brother.

She said she later discovered two “quite threatening” voicemails which Blud had left on her phone before the fire and around five messages left between 8am and 1pm following the fire in which she said his voice had changed and he sounded concerned wanting to know where she was, saying he was “worried sick”.