A fireman accused of burning his wife and sons alive has been seized by police after it emerged he had just proposed to his nurse lover and was seen leaving the apartment on CCTV minutes after the blaze broke out when he was supposed to be at work.

Accused Turgay Gezgin had insisted he was working when the family home caught fire in Nazilli, western Turkey, on 18th March.

And in a sickening ploy he apparently pretended to faint in front of his colleagues when he turned up at the apartment after the blaze to prove how grief-stricken he was.

Neighbours say he emerged just moments after they had opened the door to the flat with a credit card.

One told local media: "After the other firefighters came in, he started yelling, 'My children' and 'my wife' and throwing himself on the floor.

"If he was sincere, why didn't he go into the house and save his children and his wife, even though we'd opened the door before he arrived?"

Fire investigators became suspicious when they saw the blaze had been carefully contained to the room where his wife and sons aged four and 11 were asleep.

Investigators then discovered CCTV images that further revealed he had left the house minutes after the blaze started when he was supposed to be at work.

And toxicology autopsy tests on his wife Fatma Gezgin, 34, and son Muzaffer Deniz and his little brother Toprak Ege revealed they had been doped before the fire started.

All three died from smoke inhalation.

Searches of Gezgin's mobile phone and other devices found he had proposed to his lover, named only as F.T., days before the fire.

Under questioning, the nurse confessed they had become officially engaged just 10 days after his wife and children had died.

Police also discovered that two weeks before engineers found a gas leak in the apartment, apparently done deliberately with a hammer and nail.

Gezgin is being held in custody while his lover has been released on bail as police continue to investigate the deaths.