A FORMER bank manager accused of setting fire to his house while his family were asleep walked free from court yesterday.

A jury took just 15 minutes to find Glenn Hunt not guilty of arson with intent to endanger life and arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.

His acquittal came after a five-day trial when he had denied trying to burn down the family's luxury home because of supposed financial worries.

Glenn Hunt had told the court in evidence that his family were the most important thing in his life and that he would do nothing to harm them.

The prosecution had alleged that £30,000 worth of debts, which he described as 'revolving credit' for his businesses, had made him depressed. He said he was not worried about the debts.

But he said that he had no intention of either killing himself or his family, which includes two teenage children, and had no idea who started the blaze.

The fire started in the hallway of the luxury £140,000 four bed detached Georgian style house and spread upstairs damaging the bathroom and study.

When Hunt was charged with arson the insurance company abruptly stopped refurbishing work on the property leaving it half finished.

Hunt, aged 46, of Ridgemont Close, Horwich, had been on trial at Bolton Crown Court and denied committing arson with intent to endanger life and an alternative charge of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered on May 24 last year.

Hunt was the former manager of the NatWest bank at UMIST for three years until 1995 when he took voluntary redundancy and became a financial mortgage adviser.

Earlier he told the court that he had fallen asleep on the settee in the living room while watching a film but was woken at around 4am by a loud bang.

When he opened the lounge doors to the hall he was met was a wall of black smoke and he said he just closed the doors and froze.

He heard his wife shouting instructions to the children and he then attempted to break the locked windows with a table and then his hands.

Finally his son Gareth and neighbours, using a ladder and a rock, smashed their way through the windows and at the second attempt he escaped.

The court also heard that the family had been roused by Hunt's wife Jennifer, who had just attended a fire training course, when she realised the house was on fire.

Remembering her training course Mrs Hunt, headteacher at St Thomas Chequerbent CE primary school in Westhoughton, calmlytold the children to cover the cracks in the doors to prevent smoke getting into their rooms.

The son, Gareth, had smashed his bedroom window, threw his mattress onto the lawn and jumped out wearing just his underwear and alerted neighbours.

But when senior fire officers sifted through the remains of the ground floor they noticed petrol had been used to start the fire from inside the house and alerted the police. Hunt was later arrested and charged.

On the evening of the fire Mrs Hunt had been preparing for her daughter Naomi's 19th birthday the following day by cooking food and wrapping presents before going to bed at 11.30pm.

Mrs Hunt said she no idea about the £30,000 debts and had only learned about those following the fire. She said her husband was a normal, caring and loving father to the children.