The husband of a pub landlady set a fire outside the bar while customers including children were in the premises. Peter Evans torched a bag of rubbish that was against the door of the public house after being thrown out for assaulting his wife. The alarm was raised when people in the bar smelled smoke and a customer and a member of staff were able to put out the fire before it took hold.
Brian Simpson, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that on the evening of November 19 last year Evans began verbally abusing his wife and calling her a "slag" and asking: "Who are you shagging today?" He was thrown out of the pub and the door was locked behind him. But he climbed back in through the lounge window and grabbed the partner by the throat and pushed her against the wall causing scratch marks on her neck. Following the incident his partner pushed the 44-year-old defendant out of the pub.
The court heard that 10 minutes after the assault the smell of smoke became apparent in the pub and a burning bag of rubbish was found outside the front door. A customer and a member of staff stamped out the fire but not before "charring" had been caused to the door. The prosecutor said there had been a number of people in the pub at the time of the incident including the young children of one of the customers who were upstairs watching television.
