A PRISONER claims fellow inmates stole documents from his cell and used them to falsely allege he was trying to murder his wife, children and next door neighbour.

Giving evidence in his own defence at Bolton Crown Court, Andrew McGarry said that he was vulnerable and had mental anxiety problems when he was befriended by prisoners James Plaice and Colin Brady at Forest Bank prison.

Architect McGarry, aged 39, had been jailed in February last year after admitting driving a blazing car into the front of his former home in Victoria Road, Horwich while his estranged wife, Heather and three children were inside the terraced house.

He told a jury that while in prison he was plagued by thoughts about his wife and former home and was encouraged to write them down as a form of therapy.

He claimed he drew detailed plans of the Victoria Road property in order to start devising a future home extension.

But the plans were later found in Mr Brady’s cell, along with notes about the security system at the house and its address, plus a list detailing offences which the prosecution allege McGarry was attempting to recruit people to carry out.

Included in the documents were names of men which McGarry claimed he and his wife had been involved in “swinging relationships" with.

McGarry told the court he thought Brady and Plaice were acting as "listeners" to his problems, but instead they started to bully him and fabricate allegations about him because he was regarded by other inmates as a “nonce”.

McGarry told the court: “They were very cunning, these two lads. They’ve come together and made it look like I have done something.”

McGarry, formerly of Croyde Close, Harwood, denies two counts of soliciting the murders of Heather McGarry and her neighbour Andrea Leighton between February 1 and June 10 last year and three further offences of encouraging or assisting the commission of offences.

The trial continues.