A murder investigation was told a vagrant alleged to have doused another rough sleeper in barbecue lighter fluid and set him alight threatened to 'burn out' another man that same night, a court heard.

Dean Lewis, who is accused of killing Giles Metcalfe in the stairwell of a Tunbridge Wells multi-storey car park, was said to have been rowing at a nearby petrol station when he issued the threat.

A female friend told police she heard him warn another man: "I'll burn you out."

She then drove Lewis back to the Torrington car park, where it is alleged he and James Marshall-Gunn later set fire to 43-year-old Mr Metcalfe as he lay in his sleeping bag.

His badly burnt body was found at about 3am on March 7 this year. Cause of death was recorded as burns and smoke inhalation.

Maidstone Crown Court in Kent heard he was more than three times the drink-drive limit and would have been 'relatively oblivious' to who was with him and what was happening.

But a few hours before he died Mr Metcalfe texted his estranged wife to say 'Settling down for the night. It's all good xx'.

Lewis was arrested later that morning at his girlfriend Vivien Martin's home in Grange Gardens, Rusthall, near Tunbridge Wells.

He was in bed with Miss Martin and her friend Michelle Sharp. Another man, believed to be Marshall-Gunn, was asleep at the bottom of the bed.

Lewis, 34, of no fixed address, and 30-year-old Marshall-Gunn, of Hadlow Road, Tonbridge, deny murder.

The court heard it was Miss Sharp who gave a statement to police in which she claimed she heard Lewis make the threat at the service station.

She also told police that Lewis was 'unhappy' when Mr Metcalfe flirted with his girfriend, inviting her into his sleeping bag, and that Miss Martin had later falsely claimed Mr Metcalfe was a paedophile.

But in a series of confused exchanges with prosecution and defence teams when giving evidence in court, Miss Sharp admitted she was 'cracked out of her head' on cannabis and crack cocaine at both the time of the incident and when she spoke to police more than a month later.

She said she could not rely on her memory, and now could not recall if Lewis had even made the threat.

"My statement says Deano said it but now I can't remember. I was that much out of my head. All I remember is dropping him off (back at the car park) and everything was fine.

"There were other people outside the petrol station. Someone said it outside, unless I was hearing things. It could have been all in my head because I was smoking marijuana, smoking crack cocaine."

Miss Sharp told the court that she and Miss Martin left Lewis, Mr Metcalfe and Marshall-Gunn in the car park stairwell. Mr Metcalfe was sitting in his sleeping bag drinking lager and chatting.

She said she discovered he had died when police arrived at Miss Martin's home and arrested Lewis.

Lewis denied killing Mr Metcalfe and claimed he had left the car park after Mr Metcalfe started 'talking weird' and then poured lighter fluid over himself while holding a cigarette.

An open bottle of barbecue lighting fluid and two lighters were found close to Mr Metcalfe's body. The court was told the most likely source of ignition for the fire was a naked flame being held to the sleeping bag.

Traces of paraffin were also found on his jeans, upper clothing and socks, as well as on a pair of Lewis's shoes.

Prosecutor Philip Bennetts QC said at the start of the trial that Mr Metcalfe's medical records contained no history or mention of him having suicidal thoughts, feelings or tendencies.

CCTV cameras captured Lewis and Marshall-Gunn leaving the car park at 1.20am, only to return at 2.07am. They left again just six minutes later, having allegedly set Mr Metcalfe on fire.

The jury, who together with Judge Philip Statman and legal teams visited the alleged murder scene yesterday, was told the fire could be seen on CCTV reflected on a shutter outside the train station and opposite the stairwell.

Asking the jury to consider why the men were in for such a short period of time, and during which the fire ignited, Mr Bennetts said: "We submit on the evidence for your consideration that you can draw a proper and safe inference that together they went in to kill Mr Metcalfe by fire. What other explanation can there be? In, fire, out."

Explaining possible motives for the murder, Mr Bennetts said there was 'not a word of truth' in Miss Martin's allegations about Mr Metcalfe, but told the court: "You will know how inflammatory such comments can be."

Marshall-Gunn was arrested on March 12. When charged with murder he replied: "I'm not guilty."

The trial is expected to last up to three weeks.