An ‘obsessed’ mistress almost consigned her former

An ‘obsessed’ mistress almost consigned her former lover to
a fiery grave when she torched his flat while he slept upstairs,
the Old Bailey heard today Wednesday.

Greta Grant, 39, blocked the only exit to the maisonette by
shoving petrol-soaked rags through the letterbox and setting them
ablaze, it was alleged.

Fortunately, the noise of the explosion woke up Mr Philip
Salmon, 42, in time for him to douse the fire before it could
get out of control.

Grant, a cleaner of Evelyn Court, Murray Grove, Hoxton,
was arrested nearby with singed hair and reeking of petrol, the
jury heard.

She denies recklessly endangering life by arson on April 26
this year.

Grant and Mr Salmon had been lovers in the early 1980s and
she continued as his mistress when he set up home with another
woman, said Miss Susan Edwards, prosecuting.

‘In some ways she was more attached to him that he was to
her.

‘The affair concluded in January 1991 when the other woman
left the country.

‘Grant and Mr Salmon saw each other for about a year but it
did not work out due, in part, to her very possessive nature.

‘In January this year he said he did not want to continue the
relationship.

‘It is clear she had become obsessed, did not want to let him
go and said as much in the days leading up to the fire.

‘
The day before the blaze, they clashed in his dry cleaning
shop in Buttesland Street, Hoxton.

He had to bundle her out of
the shop and call the police, the court heard.

He was asleep in the third floor maisonette in Janice Mews,
Ilford, just after 4am when Grant allegedly launched her fire
attack.

A policewoman later saw Grant in a nearby alleyway.

She explained her singed hair as an accident with a cigarette
and claimed she was on her way to the flat and had not started
the blaze.

But the court was told Grant’s car had a cannister of petrol
inside and her glasses were found on a windowsill near the door
to Mr Salmon’s flat.

She was arrested.

Her clothing were found to have petrol
staining, the jury heard.

The trial continues.

ENDS