Middlesbrough trainer’s cars targeted in arson attack

A personal trainer raced naked from his house when an arsonist set fire to three cars on his driveway.

Mike Hind, 41, stayed up to watch television on Tuesday night after his wife and three children went to bed.

A doorbell camera on their Middlesbrough property alerted the gym coach to somebody on his drive around midnight and, after seeing an orange flash, he looked out to see three cars on fire before screaming to his family to “get out”.

Mr Hind said he “didn’t know whether to chase him or to make sure my family were out of the house”.

“I didn’t know what was on fire so I headed back in to make sure they were all right,” Mr Hind said.

“I got them into a neighbour’s house and then called the police.”

Mr Hind, who was appointed MBE in 2022 for charitable work during the Covid pandemic, believes that without the doorbell camera he would not have realised what was happening “until it was too late”.

“This could have been a story about five people dying in a house fire. If not for the Ring doorbell, we wouldn’t be here,” he said.

“A minute or two longer and the firemen said it could have set the house on fire.”

The fire service confirmed they attended the blaze at 12:05 BST.

Cleveland Police have appealed for witnesses as they hunt the attacker.