Andrew Brown hurled a Molotov cocktail threw a window of a house in Penicuik in the early hours of August 28 last year.

Taxi driver Brian Soave managed to extinguish the flames in the living room of his family home.

The attack was captured on CCTV footage after the family fitted security cameras at their house to protect against vandals.

A judge described the film evidence as "one of the most dramatic sequences" he had seen in many years in court.

The hooded attacker was seen appearing outside the victims' home and launching the lit petrol bomb towards his target.

Garage assistant Brown, aged 23 of Cranston Street, Penicuik, had denied attempting to murder Mr Soave, his wife Tracy and sons Brian and Mark by setting fire to their home in the town's Fletcher Grove, but a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted him of the offence by a majority verdict.

Brown was also found guilty of committing an earlier breach of the peace in Fletcher Grove on February 17 last year by threatening to petrol bomb Mark Soave's car.

Mr Soave said on the night of the petrol bomb attack the family were wakened by "a very loud bang".

He told the court: "I went downstairs and opened the living room door and was confronted by the living room on fire. I closed the door and shouted upstairs to the rest of the family to get out.

"I didn't realise they were trying to leave upstairs but they were restrained by the flames at the top of the window. They came downstairs and got out the front door."

Mr Soave said he went back in to try to put out the flames. "I was using a cushion. I couldn't put the fire out so I crawled through to the kitchen, soaked a towel and came back and managed to put out the flames," he said.

"After everything had calmed down and we were all outside safely, we realised there had been a petrol bomb put through the window."

Mr Soave, aged 43, received treatment from ambulance staff for smoke inhalation.

Mr Soave was shown the CCTV after being seen by paramedics. He said: "As soon as I saw the re-run of the television evidence I knew exactly who it was. It was Andrew Brown."

Other members of his family were also certain of the identity of the perpetrator.

Mr Soave said one reason the cameras were installed was because of problems with neighbours at the time. Brown and his father, Robert, stayed at a neighbouring house.

Mr Soave agreed there were a number of occasions when Brown had shown a degree of ill-will towards him and his family.

Mrs Soave said she had been advised to keep a diary and had recorded an earlier incident when Brown threatened to petrol bomb her son's car. A threat was also made to "rip his face off".

After Brown was convicted judge Roger Craik QC deferred sentence on him for a background report and remanded him in custody.