Charles Stabler, 65, never woke from a coma after being hit around the head last month.A neighbour called emergency services after seeing smoke coming from the flat, in the seaside resort of Benalmadena.Fireman found Mr Stabler lying unconscious on the floor of the flat and he was taken to the Carlos Haya hospital in Malaga.
The burglar fled after ransacking the apartment and setting it on fire.A 44-year-old Spaniard was arrested 17 days later and is in prison on remand accused of the crime.He is thought to have followed Mr Stabler home from a local bar and forced his way in at around midnight on April 9.Mr Stabler had stayed at the resort, next to Torremolinos on the southern Spanish holiday coast, for some years.

British mother has been arrested in Spain after she allegedly left her five-year-old son to burn on a baking hot beach for 12 hours while she went to work.
The boy's mother, aged 19, reportedly left him playing in the sand at the popular resort of Benalmadena, in the Costa del Sol, where he suffered serious sunburn and had to be later admitted to hospital.According to locals, at around 10am the woman went to work at the top of the beach for five hours, but failed to collect her child when she finished her shift.The boy is said to have later made his way to the stall, reportedly covered in blisters. 'He looked desperate for a drink and was crying his heart out.'The stallholder managed to get the girl on the phone at around 8pm.
'But it was nearly 10pm before she turned up, claiming she couldn’t find anyone to give her a lift.'She started screaming and threatening people who had helped out.'
Police arrested the woman at the scene, having being called earlier in a bid to find her.A local police spokesman refused to comment except to confirm: 'It’s being dealt with by National Police.'It is believed the woman is from Scotland and moved to Spain after meeting a man on holiday there.A police source added: 'The burns were serious enough to warrant hospitalisation.'She could be charged with abandonment and child neglect.'

Families planning a summer holiday abroad face paying up to a fifth more than they did last year.Researchers from price comparison website Travelsupermarket.com compared popular packages for 2008 with similar ones from last year.
They found that a two-week self-catering break for a family of four (two adults and two children) in Benalmadena on the Costa Del Sol has risen by £246 to £1,504.
The rise is blamed on the double whammy of rocketing jet fuel prices, which have gone up by 80 per cent in the past year, and a weak pound against the euro - last year £1 was worth 1.5 euros, this year under 1.2.It means that not only are flights more expensive, but so too are hotels, and food and drink when you get there. the cost of a hotel in Benalmadena has shot up from £700 to £855.

Jesús GR, the driver responsible for a coach crash on the A-7 motorway near Benalmadena on April 19th that killed nine tourists from Finland and left 42 others injured, was travelling at 155km an hour, according to the conclusions of the Guardia Civil's Accident Reconstruction team. The driver, who was transferred to jail following his eventual release from hospital, tested over the limit for alcohol and initially claimed to have been going no faster than 130km an hour. The coach transporting the party of tourists to Málaga airport at the end of their holiday, was calculated to have been travelling at 99.9km an hour at the moment of impact.

Ray Griffin, of Dowell Street, fell victim to thieves preying on tourists while staying in a hotel resort in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol earlier this month.The incident happened just two weeks after a Welsh tourist was left for dead following a bungled bag snatch.
The female victim was thrown to the ground as a man on a moped tried to snatch her bag, leaving her with a blood clot on the brain.Mr Griffin was on holiday with his wife, Valerie, when thieves made off with a purse, containing 150 Euros, a silver lucky charm and a Nintendo DS with four games."I was sunbathing by the pool and it was quite breezy," Mr Griffin told the Herald."When I got up, I saw our bag had blown to one side. I didn't know it had been moved by thieves.
"I realised the items were missing when I looked inside."Mr Griffin reported the theft to police and was later able to view CCTV footage, which, he says, clearly showed two local men in their 40s and 20s as the culprits."I saw the hotel manager and had a go at him about security. There is no security whatsoever," he said.
"It's getting terrible in Spain. Villains are making a living out of ripping off tourists."A few days after the theft, Mr Griffin was astounded to see the same men back in the hotel's grounds."I went over and challenged them, and they threatened to shoot me!" he said. "One of them had a bag and he went to unzip it as he said it.
"Other holidaymakers joined me in challenging them and they left the site."
Mr Griffin believes the men were accessing the hotel grounds via insecure gates. He has taken pictures of the gates - to illustrate how they are being left unlocked or secured with a plastic tie.Mr Griffin travelled to Spain as an independent tourist and not as part of a package deal with a tour operator.

Nine Finnish tourists including a seven-year-old girl died following a bus crash near the Spanish resort town of Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol yesterday. Some 16 others were injured, some seriously, when their bus veered off the road and over-turned after a collision with another vehicle.
The driver of car has been detained on suspicion of being over the drink driving limit The bus was taking the tourists to Malaga airport to catch their flight home when the accident happened.The driver of the four wheel drive vehicle tested 0.50 milligrams of alcohol in his breath, double the legal maximum and is being blamed for the accident. This was confirmed by the Government Sub Delegate for the province, Hilario López Luna, who also said the KIA driver has been arrested. He is a 27 year old man from Málaga and is now in the Clínico hospital with slight injuries. His father was with him in the vehicle and he was also only slightly hurt.
The 47 tourists, driver, and two TUI guides, were all then trapped inside the wreckage of the bus, and despite the efforts of other drivers who witnessed the accident, had to wait some two hours before the emergency workers could gain access by cutting a hole in the roof of the vehicle. Later heavy lifting gear was brought in to right the vehicle. The coach driver and the guides are among the injured.
The bus driver has been named as 53 year old José Jiménez. His daughter told the Diario Sur newspaper that only that morning he had been talking to the family about the responsibility of transporting so many people. His wife and children spoke of his ‘professionalism and prudence’ at the wheel.

The CEO of a Málaga developer and his brother are being charged with fraud by around 20 clients who made a down payment on houses that were never built.
The buyers, who are mostly British, filed charges against Grupo Mirador, which is run by Enrique and Leopoldo Faura, after waiting nearly five years for their homes to be built in Fuente de la Piedra. In April 2003 the victims of the alleged fraud paid between EUR 30,771 and EUR 88,024 in advance for houses whose construction is yet to be completed.
The irregular proceedings also extend to the bank that was meant to guarantee the return of the money should the contract between the clients and the developer be rescinded. Caja Hipotecaria Centro Sur S.A. was registered in Panama and is no longer operational.
A number of British citizens have taken the property company Grupo Mirador and the sales agency Palmera Properties to courts for fraud. The sales company, located in Benalmadena, which specialised in selling “off-plan properties”, took commissions of up to 3,500 Euro from the clients when they made their initial down payments.
Grupo Mirador, which had developments in Benalmadena, Villanueva de Rosario and Fuente de Piedra, spread over a number of small companies, have sold houses, which have later been seized as security against the companies’ debts. They have also issued payment notes without funds, used bank guarantees with a financial company that lacks authorisation for this activity and have failed to comply with the building specifications for their projects. Some of the companies in the group are in a ruinous financial situation, with important embargoes
The promoter Francisco Contreras, known as “El Pocero” upon a sentence for 4 years imprisonment by the Madrid courts, promptly appealed the decision in the Constitutional Courts. He deposited the 1.9 million Euro in guarantees demanded by the judge.
Contreras has projected a town with 13,500 dwellings in Sesena (Toledo), without guarantees for a stable water supply. The project was approved by the previous (socialist) mayor and also the regional government of Castilla – La Mancha.
In Catral (Alicante) the new PP municipal government, which succeeded the socialist mayor who had authorised the construction of 1,300 illegal houses, has presented a new general plan which includes all the illegal construction. The Regional government has ordered the bulldozing of 34 houses, is preparing the order for demolition of another 81. Over the summer the illegal construction has continued, in spite of the previous fireworks from the Regional Government
The PP majority in Orihuela town hall, without the obligatory certificate of water supply from the Hidrographic Conferederation of the water district Jucar, has approved a plan to build a further 2,570 houses on the coast.