A depressed husband who tried to burn himself aliv

A depressed husband who tried to burn himself alive in
his own flat when his wife and children walked out has been set
free at the Old Bailey.

Graham Naylor, 29, set eight different fires in his two
storey flat, but fled when the fumes started choking him.

Police officers found him sitting on the steps of the
house in tears.

And inside officers discovered tragic suicide notes
Naylor wrote to his wife, mother and best friend.

He told wife Alison: ‘I’m so sorry, but I love you too
much to carry on without you.

‘
The court heard she left with the three young children
on January 25 this year and within two days Naylor was planning
his own funeral pyre.

He used two hurricane lamps to start a blaze in the
living room on the second floor, said prosecutor Mr Richard
Fitzpatrick.

Petrol was used to start other blazes in the bedrooms,
kitchen, bathroom and spare room of the Champion Crescent,
Sydenham, flat
Mrs Michelle Richardson, who lived in the flat below,
answered her door to a stranger at around 7.

30pm and was told:
‘You’re house is on fire.

You must get out.

‘
She tried to warn Naylor but later found him sobbing
on the steps outside.

Extensive damage was caused before fire-fighters brought
the blaze under control.

Naylor later told officers: ‘I wanted to end it all but
the smoke got too much for me and I had to leave.

‘
He added he did not think it possible for the fire to
spread downwards to threaten the lives of Mrs Richardson and the
couple who lived below her in the basement.

In the letter to his wife he stated: ‘I have tried to
hold on but I can’t anymore.

The last 24 hours was just too much
to take.

‘
And in the note to his best pal he wrote: ‘If you know
where my wife is tell her I love her and the kids.

Just do this
for me for one last favour.

‘
Naylor, who had no previous convictions, admitted
reckless arson on January 27.

Miss Ruth Johnson, defending, said Naylor was heavily
in debt when he set fire to the flat.

‘He suffers nightmares about the experience and when
asked about it he still becomes tearful,’ said counsel.

Imposing a probation order for a year, Judge Kenneth
Richardson, QC, said Naylor was not a danger to the public.

‘Setting fire to premises in such circumstances is a
dreadfully serious offence,’ he said.

‘But one has too look at each offence of that kind in
its own circumstances.

‘I am quite satisfied that this behaviour was
triggered by acute depression.

‘Although I thought at first it was a strange way to
commit suicide in this country, I am now sure that is exactly
what you intended.

‘
ENDS