A THREAT to “torch” a neighbour’s car was taken seriously, as it was made by a notorious convicted killer, a court heard.

Dennis Scott made the comment to another neighbour only weeks before the car – a rare specialist kit model of a Fifties Royale Sabre – was destroyed by fire in a dilapidated garage at Stanhope Castle, in Weardale, County Durham.

Residents sleeping in different apartments of the castle, including several children, had to evacuate the building following the blaze, overnight on June 21-22 last year.

Durham Crown Court was told that the car was owned by Charles Scott, with whom Dennis Scott – better known as Sixties’ gangland figure Dennis Stafford – had a heated dispute.

Both lived in separate apartments at the castle, and after Charles Scott moved in, during the latter months of 2007, they fell out.

Dennis Scott had also taken a dislike to Charles Scott over him parking the car in the garage on the site and wrote to him threatening to have the car scrapped if he continued to do so.

Giving evidence at Durham Crown Court, Stanhope cafe owner Gordon Witton, who also moved into the castle shortly before the fire, said Dennis Scott told him he would “destroy Charles’ toy”

and that he could get the car “torched”.

Mr Witton said he knew of Dennis Scott’s past, as he often spoke to him about the gangland figures he came across in the Sixties, including the Kray twins.

Adrian Dent, prosecuting, said: “If it was anyone else you would dismiss it as a bit of a joke, but from Dennis Scott you thought there were some realms of credibility?

“Yes, it was credible,” added Mr Witton.

In cross-examination by Dennis Scott’s barrister, Kieran Rainey, Mr Witton said he was giving evidence because he feared his granddaughter could have died in the fire.

Mr Rainey said: “That’s why your evidence is coloured all the way through. You have already condemned Dennis Scott, haven’t you?

Mr Witton replied: “Yes, 100 per cent.”

Dennis Scott, 75, denies a charge of threatening to destroy or damage property, between April 1 and June 22 last year.

The jury has been told that Dennis Scott has served a life sentence imposed after his conviction for the so-called one-arm bandit murder of Angus Sibbett, in South Hetton, County Durham, in 1967, which was said to have inspired the subsequent cult film, Get Carter, which starred Michael Caine.

The case continues.