A WOMAN has told a court how her boyfriend set her on fire when she refused to get him a cigarette.

Belinda Fay was left with horrific injuries and permanent scars after Christopher Smalley twice poured lighter fluid on her jumper and put a lighter to it.

She screamed “I’m burning, I’m burning” and as she was engulfed in flames in the middle of the street.

Smalley has admitted wounding without intent, but is on trial for a more serious charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Today a jury at Preston Crown Court will continue its deliberations.

Smalley, 20, was branded ‘a moron’ by his own counsel, but claims it was a ‘prank that went too far’ and that he didn’t mean to hurt her.

Belinda, who gave evidence during the trial, was left scarred by burns to her neck, top of her chest and also suffered injury to her hands.

The court heard how the attack on his then girlfriend of four-and-a-half years took place outside his sister's flat on Cockridge Close, Blackburn, on July 25 last year.

Afterwards, with tears in his eyes, he had told her "I'm sorry babe. I love you. It wasn't meant to get this far".

Belinda Fay, 20, told the court they had been chatting in the company of others. She had agreed to get him a cigarette and a drink when he asked, but she refused when he asked for a second cigarette.

She said Smalley told her: “I'll set you on fire.”

Belinda told the jury "I didn't think anything of it".

She spoke of being paranoid about fire and said if she thought his comment had been a serious one, she wouldn't have replied "I dare you".

Her boyfriend squirted some lighter fluid on her jumper, in the area of her belly. He then lit it, but she managed to pat out the flame with her left hand.

The next thing she remembered was her hooded top being "soaked".

"I could smell it, wet patches around my top area". Then she said she smelled burning and realised her top was in flames.

Belinda said "I'm burning, I'm burning" and begged for help. She was placed in a cold bath at the sister's flat before being taken by ambulance to hospital, where she spent a number of weeks.

Before going to hospital she had told Smalley “Please don't leave me to die.”

Smalley, who was living on Cockridge Close at the time, claimed his comments about setting her on fire were a joke.

Smalley claimed to the jury “She laughed and said 'I dare you to'.”

He went into his sister's flat, got a container of lighter fluid and outside tried to squirt some of it on his girlfriend. The nozzle would not work, so he removed the cap, he said.

He told the court in evidence: "I walked up to her and put some lighter fluid on her jumper. I put a lighter to it and lit it." He maintained he had not been upset, annoyed or angry with her.

His girlfriend managed to pat out the flames to her stomach area with a hand. He then repeated his actions, putting three spots of the fluid - the size of 50p pieces - further up her jumper and that was lit, but he had not expected it to catch fire in the way it did.

"I stepped back in shock. I tried putting the flames out. She was screaming she was burning", he said.

"She tried to roll but it didn't work. She got up and ran along the street. She fell in front of me."

He claimed to have pulled the jumper off over her head, something she disputes. He felt "extremely shocked and so sorry" when she was on fire.

He felt "disgraced" when he saw photographs of her injuries.

"I just wish it had never happened. I didn't want to hurt her”, he said.

Smalley accepted that on a previous occasion he had said he was going to drown her and went on to hold her head under bath water until she was blue in the face. On another occasion he threatened to jump on her head.

Then several weeks before the fire attack, on June 28, last year at Hyndburn Magistrates Court, he was convicted of common assault. This had involved him headbutting her following an argument.

His barrister, Mr Iain Simkin, said in his closing speech to the jury "He is an idiot, he is a moron, but he didn't mean for this to happen".

(Proceeding).

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