Alistair Gray what had happened, he replied: “It’s a long story.”
Gray – jailed for six years yesterday – waited for girlfriend Jane Thornton to leave for work the morning after she told him their four-year romance was over.
He piled her clothes in the living room and set them alight.
Then he cruelly locked Jane’s labrador Cooper in the conservatory – condemning the pet dog to death – before dousing the three-bedroom semi in petrol and fleeing.
The fume-filled house exploded before he made it out. But Gray, 38, managed to crawl free.
Prosecutor Edmund Burge told Maidstone Crown Court: “The force of the explosion brought virtually every neighbour in the vicinity outside to see what happened.
“They saw Mr Gray leaving the rubble. He was described by a number of witnesses as laughing manically. One asked what happened. He replied, ‘It is a long story’.”
Full story: Dumped cabbie blows up ex’s house