‘God helped me escape from the fire,’ claims accused arsonist
A businessman accused of setting fire to his mother’s Grade II listed cottage to claim on insurance told how he escaped death in the flames after praying to God for help.
Suranja Thilekaratne, 39, claimed that somebody else started the blaze while he was topping up the gas meter at the £600,000 19th Century two-bedroom house in Wembley, northwest London.
He told jurors at the Old Bailey he had just walked in through the back doors on the evening of 2 November 2013 when he noticed the floor was wet and smelled of petrol.
Thilekaratne said: ‘I remember something being thrown and the house became very bright and I couldn’t get out of the house.
‘My whole body was pain. I tried to get out the conservatory but I couldn’t, I tied to unlock the bolts but I couldn’t and my hands were burnt.
‘I just thought that was it for me. I said a prayer to God to see if he would let me see my mum before a die.
‘That’s when there was a loud bang and the door burst open and that’s how I got out.’
Thilekaratne was seen running from the scene at Old Park Lodge as flames tore through the roof.
He staggered to his mother’s home in Wembley Park Drive before being taken to hospital with ‘life changing injuries’, the court heard.
The prosecution claim Thilekaratne accidentally set himself on fire when he started the blaze in a bid to either claim on insurance or redevelop the property.
Jurors have heard he and his mother, Marel Wijetunga, were involved in an eight year battle with the local council over the building of a conservatory.
The cottage had been listed for sale after the local council turned down retrospective planning permission for the unauthorised extension.
Thilekaratne is said to have told a police officer in hospital that he owed someone £10,000 but later suggested in interview that he may have been targeted because he reported fraudsters to police in late 2011.
Asked if he had deliberately set the fire, he told the court: ‘No. We have fought for eight years to clear my mum of any action, to burn that house puts me and her in a worse situation than we were in.
‘It only causes me more problems that I have had to live with for the last three years.
‘I have had every insult thrown at me and I haven’t seen my family for more than a year and a half now.’
Jurors heard four petrol can nozzles were later found in one of Thilekaratne’s cars parked near the scene.
But Thilekaratne said they had ‘accumulated’ after he bought petrol cans to fill up his leaf blower and lawnmower.
He claimed that whoever started the blaze must have used a petrol can that he kept in the shed.
Thilekaratne, of Becklow Gardens, Shepherd’s Bush, west London, denies one count of arson being reckless as to whether life is endangered.
His mother, Ms Wijetunga, has died since the incident.
The trial continues
ends
