Jurors heard a man declare his love for the woman who set his living room curtains on fire while he was inside and later told police she had intended killing him.

And Margaret Brown, 54, told Leeds Crown Court that she still loves Charles Firth with whom she admitted having a "stormy'' ten-year on-off relationship.

Brown, of Hudson Gardens, Great Horton, Bradford, denies arson with intent to endanger Mr Firth's life and said she had started the fire because she was drunk and angry about a £20 loan she said he had refused to pay back.

But yesterday John Topham, prosecuting, told the jury that it was the Crown's case that she had intended to endanger Mr Firth's life when she set fire to curtains at his ground floor flat in Kettlewell Drive, Bradford, on July 29 last year using a lighter and can of hairspray.

Mr Topham said Brown, who at the time also lived in Kettlewell Drive, had been annoyed that Mr Firth had not repaid £20 she had lent him and which she needed to buy food for her 90-year-old mother.

Following an argument about the money, she had gone to his flat after he returned from a pub and set fire to the curtains while he was in the living room.

The court heard when she was arrested Brown told a police officer: "I will torch him properly next time,'' and later told an officer: "I was going to kill him and I'm sorry I didn't, but I will next time''.

In her defence Brown said she twice phoned 999 immediately after starting the fire because she was "trying to undo what I had done''. She added: "I didn't mean those things. I didn't intend to endanger his life at any stage."

The trial continues.