Moment offended neighbour units military veteran grandfather’s gazebo on hearth whereas he’s soaking within the sizzling tub ‘as a result of he was jealous of his good backyard’
This is the moment a furious neighbour set a veteran’s gazebo on fire while he was relaxing in the hot tub because he was allegedly jealous of his nice garden.
Dennis Coles, 66, from Stockton-on-Tees, said he has suffered PTSD from the blaze and had a flashback to a petrol bomb attack he faced while serving in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s.
The grandfather feared for his life before jumping out of his hot tub and running into the kitchen after his neighbour of 25 years set the gazebo on flames.
CCTV shows Mr Coles’ neighbour, Wayne Loughman, 52, smoking cigarettes and loitering, before throwing a lit rag over the fence, which lands on the roof of the gazebo, sparking a fierce fire.
Mr Coles said: ‘I was petrified. I was sitting in the hot tub, which is in a shed, relaxing at the end of the day.
‘All of a sudden, I glanced out of the window and to my horror the roof of the gazebo was on fire.
‘Luckily, it burnt out really quickly, but it brought back memories of my time in Ireland. I was on fire, and the lads had to put me out. It was traumatising, and it brought on my PTSD.
‘It could have been so much worse. If the shed had also caught fire, which it easily could have done, I might have died.
This is the moment a furious neighbour set a veteran’s gazebo on fire while he was relaxing in the hot tub because he was allegedly jealous of his nice garden
CCTV shows Mr Coles’ neighbour, Wayne Loughman, 52, smoking cigarettes and loitering, before throwing a lit rag over the fence
Dennis Coles, 66, from Stockton-on-Tees, said he has suffered PTSD from the blaze and had a flashback to a petrol bomb attack he faced while serving in Northern Ireland
Dennis and his wife Susan Hilson-Greener later watched footage from their CCTV and saw Loughman peering over their fence before throwing the lit rag.
Susan, 66, a cafe owner, went round to confront the neighbour, but he refused to talk.
The next day, he put a note through their letterbox which read: ‘If the police aren’t coming then we need to talk.
‘You need compensation. It wasn’t malicious. If the police are coming, then please ignore.’
The couple claim the arson is just the latest incident in a campaign of harassment against them, which has included Loughman throwing a Chinese takeaway into the garden, putting excrement on their car, and shining a laser pen into Dennis’ eyes.
The police later arrested Loughman, who has lived next door to Susan and Dennis for almost 25 years.
He was charged with arson and later pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court.
In his defence, he claimed he had become frustrated by noise coming from the hot tub in the early hours of May 11.
Mr Coles said: ‘All of a sudden, I glanced out of the window and to my horror the roof of the gazebo was on fire’
Mr Coles, from Stockton-on-Tees, said the blaze brought him back to an attack he faced while serving in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s
The couple say there is absolutely no truth in this allegation, and that Dennis had been relaxing in the water on his own.
Dennis said: ‘Wayne said he was annoyed because me and my wife were having a party, and making noise. That is completely untrue. It was just me on my own.
‘I think he did it because he was jealous of us having a hot tub, and a nice garden.
‘Wayne has lied, over and over again. He tried to say there had been a party, and he’d become enraged by the noise, but there was nothing of the kind.
‘There was no noise. That’s completely untrue. I was on my own.’
In court, Judge Jonathan Carroll told Loughman: ‘You said you were disturbed by the noise from their garden. You could have knocked on their door the next day and said that.
‘You went out in the middle of the night, staring over the garden fence and throwing items over.’
He was handed a two-year prison term, suspended for two years, 200 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay Dennis £500 in compensation. He was also given a five-year restraining order.
Wayne Loughman, 52, (pictured) was accused of sparking the fire because he was ‘jealous’ of his neighbour’s garden
He put a note through their letterbox which read: ‘If the police aren’t coming then we need to talk
But the veteran, most recently of the 4 Yorks regiment, blasted the punishment, saying Loughman should have been locked up.
He said: ‘I think he should have got six years and done three. That would have been fair.
‘I’m glad he’s been told to keep away from us, but he’s lied in court. We weren’t making any noise at all.’
Dennis and Susan got the hot tub in January 2023 for £350 after a previous one was damaged.
They were both working at the time and enjoyed soaking in it together at the end of the day.
Mr Coles added: ‘We were always very quiet in it, and Wayne didn’t even complain. We usually go in it about twice a week during summer, at about 9pm or 10pm.
‘Our grandchildren love it, but what’s happened makes us scared to go in our garden.’
