A Bradford man has been cleared of murdering his wife and daughter in a blaze which wrecked their home.

Widower Chowdry Majid Ali today said he was relieved after being cleared of setting fire to his home, and sparking the fatal blaze.

The prosecution case had been built on a recording of a phone call to emergency services in which his wife had screamed: "My husband's burned me. Please help me!"

But the tape was ruled inadmissable by the judge who said he couldn't be legally sure that what she said was true.

Mr Justice Henriques told Ali: "Having read the papers very carefully and fully I am satisfied that you did not, yourself, start this fire."

Mr Ali, 23, was finally cleared by the judge more than a year after the horrifying blaze which took the life of his wife Uzma Shaheen - formerly Nazia Bi - and his two-year-old daughter Sana Majid.

Yesterday at Sheffield Crown Court, Mr Justice Henriques said he was so disturbed by the case that he was preparing to send a transcript of the trial to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Attorney General.

He said it was "shameful" it had taken so long to resolve.

Mr Ali, formerly of Rugby Place, Lidget Green, had spent three months in custody - even missing the funeral of his wife and child - while awaiting court proceedings.

He had been charged with murdering his wife and daughter and arson with intent to endanger life.

After the case Mr Ali, speaking through his solicitor Arslan Khan, said: "I am very relieved and glad this harrowing ordeal is now over."

Mr Khan added: "He's been protesting his innocence from the first. He had very little time to mourn the death of his wife and daughter because he was in a cell.

"He was denied the right to attend the funerals and was only allowed to visit the graves under armed guard."

Mr Khan said Mr Ali had had the full backing of both families and his employers, Gorji Alliance, Bradford, who always believed in his innocence.

Mr Ali said he always had faith in the justice system and justice had prevailed.

The blaze on March 1, 1999, started in a first-floor bedroom and swept through the couple's three-bedroomed terraced home.

It was stated at a previous hearing that the case had been built on evidence that the couple's arranged marriage had resulted in marital disharmony.

The trial at Sheffield Crown Court heard that Ms Bi had told a number of friends on different occasions that she would start a fire at their home and would run away with their daughter.

The prosecution relied on the tape recording of Ms Bi talking to the emergency services as their main evidence but the Honourable Mr Justice Henriques said he couldn't exclude the real possibility of the tape being "a concoction or distortion" and dismissed it following a legal test.

The case had already been thrown by Bradford Stipendiary Magistrate Guy Hodgson last month when he ruled there was insufficient evidence to send Mr Ali for trial at Crown Court.

At the time he said: "But I would comment in open court that a discharge is nnot an acquittal. What I am saying at this stage is that there is not sufficient evidence for the defendant to stand trial."

Unusually, however, the Crown Prosecution Service sought a Voluntary Bill of Indictment - a rare legal move - to bring Mr Ali to trial at Crown Court.