Ex-neighbour tried to kill family with petrol bomb

A former neighbour tried to murder a family in their beds after petrol bombing their home.

Andrew Brown hurled a lit Molotov cocktail through a window of a house in the early hours of August 28 last year in Penicuik, in Midlothian.

Taxi driver Brian Soave managed to extinguish the flames in the living room of his family's home.

The attack was captured on CCTV footage after the family fitted security cameras at their house following previous incidents of vandalism.

A judge described the film evidence as "one of the most dramatic sequences" he had seen in many years in court.

The hooded attacker was seen appearing in the quiet street outside the victims' home and launching the lit petrol bomb towards his target.

Garage assistant Brown, 23, of Cranston Street, Penicuik, had denied attempting to murder Mr Soave, his wife Tracy and sons Brian and Mark by setting fire to their home in the town's Fletcher Grove.

But a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted him of the offence by a majority verdict.

Brown was also found guilty of committing an earlier breach of the peace in Fletcher Grove on February 17 last year by threatening to petrol bomb Mark Soave's car.

Mr Soave said on the night of the petrol bomb attack the family were wakened by "a very loud bang".

He told the court: "I went downstairs and opened the living room door and was confronted by the living room on fire."

"I closed the door and shouted upstairs to the rest of the family to get out," he said.

"I didn't realise they were trying to leave upstairs but they were restrained by the flames at the top of the window. They came downstairs and got out the front door," he said.

Mr Soave said he went back in to try to put out the flames. "I was using a cushion. I couldn't put the fire out so I crawled through to the kitchen, soaked a towel and came back and managed to put out the flames," he said.

"After everything had calmed down and we were all outside safely, we realised there had been a petrol bomb put through the window. The living room window was smashed," he said.

Mr Soave, 43, received treatment from ambulance staff for smoke inhalation.

He said: "After I had been released from the paramedics my son showed me the camera evidence he had. It showed the incident taking place where the petrol bomb was lit and the person running along the road, stopping and throwing it at the house."

Mr Soave told the court he was sure it was Andrew Brown after watching the footage.

Other members of his family were also certain of the identity of the perpetrator and said they recognised him because of his face structure, build and the way he moved.

Mr Soave said the CCTV cameras had been up for a couple of years. Vehicles parked outside had been scratched and tyres slashed.

He said one reason they were installed was because of problems with neighbours at the time. Brown and his father, Robert, stayed at a neighbouring house.

Mr Soave agreed there were a number of occasions when Brown had shown a degree of ill-will towards him and his family.

Mrs Soave said she had been advised to keep a diary and had recorded the earlier incident in February when Brown threatened to petrol bomb her son's car. A threat was also made to "rip his face off".

After Brown was convicted judge Roger Craik QC deferred sentence on him for a background report and remanded him in custody.