Man destroys two homes cooking peas

A man destroyed his home and the house next door in a gas explosion when he tried to boil some peas, a court heard. Harry Foster, 58, escaped the blast, which blew rubble 40m up a Leeds street. Foster is on trial accused of damaging property after a court was told a bent gas pipe at the back of his cooker sparked the blast. Prosecutor Andrew Hatton told Leeds Crown Court that Foster had lived at the end-of-terrace house in Middleton Park Road, Middleton, with his parents for 30 years.



When his parents died, Foster was supposed to move out but the council allowed him to stay for two years while they looked for a suitable property. He signed a tenancy agreement and was due to move into a flat on January 13 last year. The explosion happened four days earlier. Both homes had to be demolished. In a written statement to police, Foster said the heating in the house had not worked for two years and the hot water had been off for months.

Tannery worker Foster, who was off work ill, said he had spent most of the day in bed, but had got up to make some food about 3pm when he had been disturbed by a knock at the door. He claimed he had turned on the gas ring to heat some peas when the explosion happened. In the statement, he said: "I remember a flash, my next memory is being in an ambulance." An investigation by the gas company and the Health and Safety Executive revealed there was a break in the gas pipe behind Foster's cooker – damage which could not be caused by just pulling the cooker out, Mr Hatton told the court.



He said: "Mr Foster's cooker had been damaged. The pipe had been bent backwards and forwards creating a kink. In so doing an explosion was caused which destroyed (the houses]. What the motivation was the prosecution cannot say. In deliberately damaging the pipe this defendant either intended to destroy his home or was reckless to whether his home would be destroyed, reckless to whether the lives of others would be endangered." Foster denies damaging property being reckless as to whether life is endangered. Proceeding.