Christopher Foster certainly wanted to make sure that the house really did burn down:
Foster, 50, whose company made a fortune selling pipe insulation technology to the oil and gas industries, laid pipes from a huge tank supplying his oil-run central heating system and ran them to the stables, garage and main house.
He then ran the oil off and used it as an accelerant to ensure the £1.2 million property was razed to the ground.
Here's the bit I don't get though. He's constantly referred to as "the arson millionaire, Christopher Foster".
But, umm, isn't the actual point that he wasn't a millionaire? That he had in fact less than no money at all? And thus the arson?