This is Exeter -- A hero neighbour has told a jury how he rescued two women from a burning house after an alleged revenge arson attack at a Dartmoor home. Mark Halliday ran 50 yards from his home at Pethybridge, near Lustleigh, and helped both victims jump from first floor windows before putting out the fire with a garden hose. Qatari oil executive Meshal al-Sawaidi is on trial at Exeter Crown Court accused of starting the fire after flying to Britain to take revenge of his lover after she ended their two year relationship. The jury has heard how he became upset and then angry after the 31-year-old public relations woman refused to return to Qatar to marry him and stopped taking his calls. She took refuge at the house at Lower Woodlands where she was staying with owner Mrs Carole Manniex but the prosecution say he found her and set light to the house by pouring white spirit through the cat flap. Mrs Manniex and al-Sawaidi's ex partner both escaped unhurt after jumping from upstairs window to escape intense heat and choking black smoke which filled the house. Al-Sawaidi, aged 43, who works as a health and safety expert with Qatari Petroleum, denies arson with intent to endanger the life of his ex girlfriend and Mrs Manniex. He says he was in his room at the Queens Hotel in Newton Abbot at the time the fire was started at Lustleigh on the night of May 2 last year. Mr Halliday said he was watching television at home when he was alerted to the screams for help coming from the house 50 yards from his home. He said:"I ran up the driveway as my partner called the fire brigade and grabbed a solar light from the garden because it was very dark. "I heard voices shouting 'help' and 'fire' and when I got underneath the first floor window I saw a woman I did not know who was shouting she was going to jump and asking me to catch her. "I said no because I had no idea how big she was but she was just jumped and I touched her on the way down to try to break her fall although I don't think I took much of the weight. "The window was 15 feet above the ground and I checked if she was all right and we could still hear Carole screaming and I guessed she was still in the house. "I could see considerable flames inside and could see Carole clinging to a dormer window on the ledge of a sloping roof wearing a night dress or something like that. "She was panicking and so I came to the lowest part of the roof and told her she would have to slide down and I would catch her and lift her off. "She said no and I told her it was burning underneath her and she had no choice. She let go and the next thing I knew I caught her and lifted her down. She was panicky and startled. "Some other neighbours had arrived and we got a hose and I went round to the back door where the room inside was well alight with flames all across the ceiling and a fire spreading into the utility room and corridor." Mr Halliday said he kicked the back door in and had to hose down the doorway before he could get near enough to aim the hose at the ceiling. The smoke was so thick and the heat so great he could only go onside for a few seconds at a time before going back out to breathe. He carried on fighting the blaze and was removing smouldering books from the corridor when the fire service arrived and took over the operation.
Reported by This is 16 hours ago.
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