(London) A man charged with pouring gasoline over the head of his ex-lover and then setting him on fire admitted the attack a police investigator has told a court.

His ex-lover, Nadim Kurrimbukus, 25, and a second man, Yusuf Dulloo, 27, are charged with murder.

After the arrests, Kurrimbukus denied the attack and Dulloo said he only drove Kurrimbukus to Davies’ home.  But Dulloo then told police, according to one of the investigators, that the following day when they met up Kurrimbukus said he had “lit the guy.”

Dulloo allegedly told police that when they arrived near Davies’ home, Kurrimbukus got out, asked Dulloo to wait for him, then took something out of the trunk of the car.

According to the police account of Dulloo’s questioning he said: “I’m listening to the radio and then I hear kind of like a scream… then he comes back and he is like as if he has been running. But I didn’t account that to anything to do with the screaming.”

Under police questioning Kurrimbukus denied Dulloo’s account. Kurrimbukus said he only went to Davies’ home to collect a phone charger.

Earlier in the trial one of Davies’ neighbors described seeing her neighbor engulfed in a “big ball of fire”.

The woman, whose name is being withheld for her own safety, said that she was coming home and as she approached Davies’ home she heard screams and saw him stumbling down his driveway on fire.

She also testified that she saw a man running down a nearby alley.

“He covered his face, first of all he had his hood up, he had sunglasses on and then he had something covering the from the tip of his nose across the face,” she told the court.

She said she and other neighbors called for help but Davies had suffered massive burns.

The prosecution claims that Davies was murdered by Kurrimbukus in revenge for the break-up of their two-year affair.