A MARKET trader has been acquitted of setting fire to a woman’s house and killing two of her pets.

A jury at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday found Shaun Blud, 42, not guilty of going to the home of Susan Belcher in the early hours of the morning on December 10, 2011, and starting a blaze which killed a toy poodle and a parrot.

Mary Parry Evans, defending, said there was no direct evidence to link Blud to the act, as no petrol was found on his clothes, although it was found in his car.

She said the prosecution was “trying to build sheer speculation into actual proof”.

The jury found Blud not guilty of damaging the property intentionally by fire, without lawful excuse, or being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.

Michael Hammett, prosecuting, had told the trial that Blud, of Dunstable Road, Newport, had been out drinking that night and had sent “angry, hateful, abusive”

voicemail messages to Ms Belcher (whom he met through an online dating website), after he was told by her friends that she was in a relationship with someone else.

Blud and Ms Belcher had parted as friends a week previously, the court heard, but at 2.44am and 2.48am on December 10, he left voicemails on her phone, swearing and saying she had been sleeping with someone behind his back.

At 3.06am, after consuming at least ten pints of beer and a double vodka and coke that night, he drove to a garage in Chepstow Road, Newport, where he bought a can of Diet Coke, some matches and 2.33 litres of petrol, despite driving a diesel car, Mr Hammett said.

At 3.19am, the fire service received a call to say that a property on Greenmeadow Way, Cwmbran, where Ms Belcher lived, was on fire.

Ms Belcher was away staying with a friend, while her son had gone to stay with his father for the weekend, the court heard.

The following day, Blud called Ms Belcher’s mobile phone 48 times and left nine voicemail messages asking where she was, Mr Hammett said, but Ms Belcher did not receive them until the afternoon due to a flat phone battery.