The upstairs neighbour of a teenage girl killed in a fireball told a murder trial on Thursday how he braved smoke and flame bare-chested and in bare feet to rescue her.
Ricci Foreman, 19, said that as he tried to get into a burning flat to reach fire victim Jessica McCagh, her boyfriend Stewart Blackburn - who has admitted killing her in an act of culpable homicide, but denies murder - ran out shouting "Jessica's dead, Jessica's dead".
Mr Foreman was giving evidence on the four day of the trial of Blackburn, 18, who is accused of murdering the young female farmworker at the flat they shared in Arbroath, Angus, by dousing her in petrol and setting her alight.
He told the jury at the High Court in Livingston that Blackburn and Jessica had been up to his flat several times on the evening before the fatal fire, which happened in the early hours of April 25 this year.
Later, as he lay in bed with his girlfriend, he heard an explosion.
He said: "It was like a boom then three seconds later a bigger boom, coming from the bedroom downstairs."
He told the solicitor-general, Frank Mulholland QC, prosecuting, that he put on tracksuit bottoms and ran downstairs, with no top on, and no shoes or socks.
"I could hear Miss McCagh screaming. I had to use my shoulder to get the door open, and as I fell in as Mr Blackburn ran past me. I met him in the hall and he shouted 'Jessica's dead, Jessica's dead', then sprinted out the front door.
"He had tracksuit bottoms on, and the back of the legs were on fire, from the calves up. I could see clearly when I entered, but it took about 30 seconds for the whole flat to fill up with smoke.
"I could still hear Jessica screaming. The whole house was orange from the colour of the flames. As I was standing there, Jessica came out with her arms in front of her shouting 'help me, Ricci, help me'.
"She was covered from head to toe in flames, with what looked to me like a white duvet wrapped around her, melting into her. Her face was melting off."
Mr Foreman said he ran into the kitchen and began to flood the sink, and grabbed a transparent plastic storage box, which was being used as a fish tank, and threw the contents over Jessica as she fell to the ground.
He said: "I filled it and threw it over her again. She went out, but the flames re-ignited so I refilled the fish tank another three or four times and kept doing it. Every fish tank full of water landed on Jessica, but the flames just went up again.
"Jessica was crouched, stumbled against the door frame. The flames were engulfing her, including her head and face. I grabbed her legs and pulled, but her skin came off."
Outside, he was sent to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee in the same ambulance as Stewart Blackburn.
Asked what Blackburn said in the ambulance, he replied: "He was upset, he was asking what happened and stuff, and he was saying his dogs were dead. I can't remember the conversation itself, I can only remember parts of it."
The trial, before Lord Bracadale, continues.
