Families with young children were evacuated and a man jumped from a window after an arson attack on a Colchester flat.

Flammable liquid was poured through the letterbox of the ground floor property in Forest Road, Greenstead.

Neighbour Martyn Goldsmith was alerted at 10.50pm yesterday when he heard the smoke alarm.

He kicked down the door opposite and put out the flames.

He and his girlfriend Emma Greenley, 18, and her sister were watching television when the alarm sounded. Three children were asleep.

Miss Greenley went out to look and saw the flames through the glass and ran over to nearby Happy Betty's Pizza Parlour to raise the alarm.

They rounded up their seven-month-old daughter Crysta and Miss Greenley's sister's two young children.

Mr Goldsmith, 22, an unemployed mechanic who works part time at Happy Betty's, said: "I tried to stamp on it but it was going up my leg. So I lobbed a wet towel on it.

"My first thought was to make sure the children and the occupant were safe."

The man who lived there was asleep but woke to the commotion and escaped through the ground floor window. He was unhurt and declined to comment.

Other residents came outside and waited for the fire brigade. Miss Greenley added: "Whoever did this didn't care that children were in the flats at the time."

The two-storey block of flats, on the corner of Hawthorn Avenue, has a security coded front door but the arsonist managed to get through this. Mr Goldsmith was checked over at Colchester General Hospital. and released later.

A fire investigation was due to be carried out today but the incident is being treated as arson. Police scenes of crime officers have been called in.

Station officer George Bruce, of Colchester fire station, said: "The place was full of smoke but the fire was out when we got there. We checked it over and called the police."

Det Sgt Roger Napier, of Colchester police said: "Mr Goldsmith did exceptionally well and averted a potentially serious fire by his prompt and brave action."

The occupant of the flat declined to comment.

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