HORRY: BORED TEENAGER JAILED FOR SETTING FIRE TO BEDROOM

A teenager who torched his top-floor flat because he was ‘lonely and bored’ has been locked up for two years.

Paul Horry, 18, doused a T-shirt in lighter fluid and flung it in the corner of his bedroom before fleeing through the window as the fire blazed out of control.

A mother and daughter living in a neighbouring flat had had to escape their own home after they awoke to the smell of smoke.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard the teenager had drunk a dozen cans of lager and a bottle of Malibu and snorted cocaine before setting light to the property.

He later claimed to police he had heard voices telling him to kill himself.

Nobody was injured by the fire set by Horry on January 4, 2011, at his home in Coleman Road, in Dagenham, Essex.

Prosecutor Peter Nugent said police had been called to the property at around 3.30am and found Horry outside and the top floor bedroom well alight.

Horry was taken to hospital and was found to have a burn to his left shoulder.

In interview the teenager admitted setting fire to the room.

‘He said he had lit his T-shirt by covering it in a flammable liquid,’ said Mr Nugent.

‘He said he did not know why he did it. He said that he was lonely and bored and had consumed 12 cans of lager, a small bottle of Malibu and two lines of cocaine.

‘He said that between 9.30pm and 3.30am he had heard a voice telling him to kill himself.

‘This led to him pouring petrol on to the T-shirt, but he said after he started the fire it got big very quickly and he jumped out of the window.’

The court heard that the landlord of the property had estimated the cost of repairing the damage to be £6,000.

For Horry defence counsel Ruwani Hewage said the fire had been a ‘cry for help’ citing her client’s troubled childhood and an inability to deal with his emotions as the root of his problems.

Horry, of (55) Coleman Road, in Dagenham, Essex, had originally been charged with arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, but his guilty plea to simple arson was accepted in March.

Sentencing Horry Judge Tudor Owen said: ‘What you did was serious, but I must remind myself I am only sentencing you for arson.

‘Therefore my hands are tied to an extent, but even straightforward arson is still a serious offence.

‘The very least sentence I can pass on you is one of two years detention.’

ENDS