Miller says he does not believe the attackers who burned the isolated moorland property, wrecked his sports car and petrol-bombed his gatehouse home had any connection with his business.

"The house was not insured and I am offering a fifty thousand pound reward for information leading to the conviction of the culprits, but I don't think the fire had anything to do with the kitchen business.

"I think the connection is to trouble that started after an old friend of mine was killed in a quad bike accident and some local gang rivalry that followed his death."

Miller, the son of the founder of the bakery engineering firm, Millers Vanguard, which is now owned by the Aga Group, had been friends for years with David Statham, 44, who died in June of head injuries in Oldham Road, Manchester. Statham sold the house to Vance Miller after gaining planning permission in 1993 to renovate Great Manshead Farm, which had been auctioned by Yorkshire Water.

Four fire crews fought the farmhouse blaze at night on the moors above Blue Ball Road, Ripponden. A fire service spokesman at Halifax said, "It was a horrible night. We could not get water to the house and it was totally destroyed by a very fierce fire which is being investigated."

Det Insp Mark McManus of West Yorkshire police said, "We are treating the blaze as arson. Mr Miller has been interviewed by police and it was his BMW sports car that was found badly damaged at the scene. Anyone who saw anything suspicious that night should come forward."

Two fire crews saved the Ramsbottom house, which featured in the BBC TV documentary that followed Vance Miller through a typical business day, travelling with him to Maple Mill and filming staff meetings to deal with the customer complaints that had been widely reported in newspapers.

Stories by campaigning journalists led to court appearances and a 'Stop Trading' order in 2002 under then-new European legislation.

A judge who called him highly intelligent but "above all, arrogant" when he insisted on defending himself without lawyers jailed him for nine months for breaking the order, but released him from Manchester's Strangeways prison two weeks later, on an undertaking to allow management experts in to help the Oldham-based firms known as Craftsman Kitchens, RB Interiors, Maple Industries and the one best known from the trailers in fields as simply "Kitchens".

The BBC film crew recorded Miller’s return to work and revealed that although he had crossed swords with authorities before - he was once charged with diamond smuggling overseas and police at Manchester Airport used the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act to seize 66,000 pounds in cash from him as he boarded a plane on a trading trip to China - his only income was from selling 300,000 kitchens a year in a successful fifty million pound business.

Newspapers covering the Manchester court case and airport cash confiscation did not comment on the continuing business success or report the return of the money, which police were obliged to repay in full.

"But they never miss an opportunity to mention again any of my so-called brushes with the law from years ago", said Vance, who admits to a chequered history and a stubborn personality that he believes has helped make his fortune.

"The press have one story on file that allows them to call me a kidnapper when they report anything about me today", he added, recalling a kidnapping charge that followed his 'citizen's arrest' of a gang who had repeatedly robbed his mother's house. "I staked the place out and collared them when they tried the next time. But then I was the one charged for catching them and they were let off".

Talking in a busy open-plan office on the top floor of Maple Mill, under rolled steel beam and triple brick arches, the one-time market stall operator said, "I am now only a sole trader who acts as the landlord and supplier to the firms based here. But it makes all the businesses in the mill a target when newspapers can print anything they want about me and we still don't get much protection from the law. A gun has been put to a security guard's head at the mill gates and we even had an armed robbery on one of our kitchen delivery vans.

"What the newspapers will not acknowledge is that bringing three thousand components five thousand miles and fitting them into one individual kitchen without hitches can be extremely difficult. All the big firms have had similar problems. Just look at the customer complaints about MFI and the others on the Internet.

"There is never any problem with the thousands of bathrooms we supply. They are much less complicated and much easier to distribute."

The van drivers who deliver kits direct from Maple Mill to each customer’s kitchen now carry high quality video cameras to film the final delivery and record any shortages or complaints on the video sound track.

Miller visits customers with difficult problems in person.

Despite his withdrawal from the retail market, customers have talked on Internet consumer sites of their astonishment at seeing the irrepressible entrepreneur pull up outside their home to make a doorstep delivery or sort out a stalled kitchen installation. Click Here to Continue