A PEMBROKE man deliberately set fire to his partner’s flat after assaulting her, a court has heard.

Lloyd Jenkins, of The Ponds, Hundleton, Pembroke, is currently on trial at Swansea Crown Court for battery, arson and criminal damage.

He denies all three charges.

Miss Walton, prosecuting, told the jury on Thursday, March 9, in her opening statement that the offences were committed on October 16, 2022.

She told the court how the couple had been together for four years and had a child together and at the time of the offences, Jenkins had been living in her Milford Haven flat for a couple of months.

They had planned to have a child-free weekend, from Friday, October 14 to Sunday, October 16, and had gone out on the evening of Saturday, October 15 in Milford Haven to a few bars, ending up at Circles nightclub.

It was here, said Miss Walton, that the pair began to argue as the complainant had been upset that Jenkins had been dancing with others and all but ignoring her.

He stormed off and she got a taxi, returned home and changed into her pyjamas.

Jenkins returned to the flat in the early hours of the morning of Sunday, October 17, and started demanding that she hand over her phone so he could call his brother to get a lift to stay somewhere else as his phone was broken.

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Miss Walton told the court that the complainant told him he could ‘sleep on the sofa’ and that they would discuss it in the morning.

She said he then ‘lost his temper’ and started to take things from the wall, including a canvas photograph, which he threw at the complainant, hitting her in the face.

She heard a noise coming from another room which sounded like glass smashing and used the time to leave the flat and go to a neighbour.

While at the neighbour’s she heard more smashing noises and ‘shouting which sounded like the defendant.’ The next sound to be heard was the fire alarm.

Concerned, the neighbour called the emergency services and the fire brigade arrived. They could see smoke coming from the flat and two firefighters went in and rescued the complainant’s dogs, but there was no one else inside.

On investigation, said Miss Walton, the forensic expert found that the fire had been deliberate because ‘the top of the oven had synthetic material in it which had been lit and there was more synthetic material in the bottom of the oven which had been lit.’

A separate pile of material was also found on the linoleum floor which had been lit and was the cause of the fire.

When the complainant was able to re-enter her property later that morning, she found that damage had been caused to the television, TV stand and a door had been damaged.

Jenkins was arrested later that day and provided a prepared statement saying that he did not assault the complainant, he did not set fire to her property and he did not damage anything in the property. When asked questions by police, he responded with ‘no comment.’

Miss Walton told the court that a partial footprint was recovered from the door and that this was forensically matched to the right trainer that Jenkins was wearing at the time of his arrest.

The trial continues.

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