A MAN squirted lighter fluid over his ex-partner before threatening to set her on fire, a court heard.

Ryan Seggie was at the woman’s home in Burnham Walk, Farnworth, in the early hours of July 31 this year when the incident took place.

After the fluid was poured on her she escaped through a window before Seggie dragged her back into the property.

Seggie, aged 25, admitted affray and common assault at Bolton Crown Court in August but denied pouring the fluid over his former partner.

A hearing to determine whether he did so heard how the pair were at her house together watching a film when a disagreement took place.

The woman, giving evidence, said that Seggie kept going in and out of the kitchen and when she went into the room he was holding a knife.

She said that Seggie was sitting on some ladders and then he began running towards her and ‘squirted’ her with lighter fluid from a can.

The fluid went in her hair and down her back, and some also went in her eyes.

Throughout the night Seggie, of East Way in Hall i’th’ Wood, also threatened to set her on fire, the court heard.

The woman said that she was too scared to do anything so sat back down on the settee.

Her 18-year-old son, who was upstairs with his friend, came down the stairs after hearing the commotion.

Seggie then kicked the friend in his genitals, after he threatened to call his friends, before chasing him and the son back up stairs, trying to get the friend’s mobile phone from him.

While they were upstairs, the woman climbed out of a window and started running up the street shouting ‘help, help’.

She then clung onto a drainpipe before Seggie came running after her.

He then dragged her back into the house and the police arrived a short time later.

Seggie denied that he ever poured the fuel over her or making threats to set her on fire but Judge Timothy Stead disagreed.

However, the woman had claimed that Seggie had hit her in the head with a stool but judge Stead found that this did not happen.

Judge Stead said the source of the disagreement was not clear and that Seggie intended to scare his victim, rather than cause serious her serious physical harm.

Seggie will be sentenced next Thursday.