A woman whose car police believe was deliberately set on fire in the early hours of Saturday a short distance from her Marlborough home fears it was no accident that her car was targeted.

The 30-year-old laboratory worker knew nothing about the car fire shortly after 3am until she walked to Free’s Avenue to go out in it the next morning and discovered it was not there.

All that remained was a charred area of road and a call to the police confirmed that her car appeared to have been torched.

The burnt out wreckage of the Citroen Saxo, which cost her £1,000 a year ago and which contained her horse riding gear, had been taken away by Whatley’s recovery service at Pewsey and was later sent for scrap.

All that the woman has left of her car is a photograph of it taken by the recovery driver.

A second car parked nearby was damaged by the flames and intense heat from the burning Saxo.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said: “I have my suspicions about who did it and I have given a name to the police. I feel that I was deliberately targeted and that whoever did it knew it was my car.”

PC Paul Johnson is investigating the car fire, two suspicious caravan fires at Clatford and a Ford Mondeo, also parked in Frees Avenue, which had its tyre valves cut.

He is appealing for witnesses who might have seen a grey car, possibly a Vauxhall Astra, in the area.

Before being called to the car fire at 3.20am, Marlborough fire crews had already been called out twice to deal with blazing caravans on the Elm Tree business park on the A4 at Clatford and again believed to have been the work of an arsonist.

Shortly after midnight two fire crews from Marlborough responded to a 999 call saying a caravan, one of three stored there, was well ablaze.

They extinguished it and had just got back into the fire station at 1.40am when they were called to Elm Tree business park again and found a second caravan on fire. The intense flames, which scorched adjacent trees to a height of 50 to 60 feet, also damaged the third.

Acting Sgt David Tippetts said there was no evidence linking the car and caravan fires but he said it was more than coincidence they were started the same night.

Anyone with information should contact PC Johnson on (01845) 408 7000.