Wildfire death charge man 'tried to stop flames'

The man accused of starting a fire on South Africa’s Table Top mountain that killed another tourist told today how he desperately tried to stamp out the flames.

Briton Anthony Cooper ,37, a salesman from Brighton, told a court he had noticed a “tiny” fire in grassland near his parked car after a spark flew from a match he used to light a cigarette.

The flames fanned into a huge blaze that killed British tourist Janet Chesworth, 65, from Sedgely, West Midlands who was hiking in the area.

Cooper is accused of her manslaughter.

Giving evidence for the first time Cooper told the Cape Town court he had been on the mountain slopes with two Italian friends.

He said he knew every path on the mountain, and had walked ahead of his friends.

At one stage he had returned alone to their car, where he had left his cigarettes.

As he sat in the car, he was unable to find his cigarette lighter, but had found some Italian matches, which he used to light his cigarette.

He said the matches were different from South African ones, and more difficult to strike.

It had taken him three matches to light his cigarette, and he recalled a spark flying from one of the matches, out of the half-open car window.

He said he had smoked half his cigarette, when he smelled smoke outside and noticed a “tiny” fire near his car, and he quickly got out of the car to put the fire out.

He told the court: “Instead of putting it out, I seemed to fuel it and it got bigger”.

He said he tried to call wardens in a nearby hut, but there was no response.

He then dialled the emergency services on his mobile phone, and gave his details before driving away.

As he left, the fire spread.

He said previous evidence that he had smoked outside the car, and flicked his cigarette end into the dry grass, was “absolute rubbish”.

Cooper took the witness stand after magistrate Wilma van der Merwe dismissed an application launched by his lawyers for his acquittal.

The magistrate said Cooper had been the only person in the vicinity of the fire when it started.

The case continues tomorrow.