Arsonist set fire to his flat

A LONER who was fed up with his life deliberately started two fires in his flat in Oldham — then walked almost 30 miles over the Pennines, a court heard.

The blaze caused more than £7,000 damage to the housing association property in Church Road, Shaw — and could easily have cost lives.

A couple who lived in an adjoining house were alerted by smoke, and there was nobody in the flat below at the time.

Steven Hall (52), who lost everything he owned in the blaze, was found wandering the streets of Sheffield in a dazed state some hours later. He was hospitalised before being found a bed at a Salvation Army hostel. When he was traced by police, he initially claimed the fires had been accidental, but he later accepted they were deliberate and pleaded guilty to arson.

Jailing him for 40 months at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court, judge Jonathan Geake told him: “Your bizarre and disturbed behaviour shows that you were not in your right mind at the time. Arson is always a most serious offence and though a lot of damage was caused, the major problem was the potential danger to life.”

The court was told that Hall had slipped into an isolated and lonely existence after the death of his parents. He then lost his job, which had been his only opportunity to socialise, and added financial problems led to severe depression.

Juliet Berry, prosecuting, said the occupants of one of the two semi-detached properties in Church Road, smelled smoke on April 6, and could see it pouring from air bricks under the window of Hall’s flat. Experts later found two seats of fire — one in the living room, where a timber-framed bed had been set alight, and another in a bedroom used as a store room, in which piles of paper had been ignited.

Hall claimed in an interview that he had dropped a cigarette which started the fire in the bedroom, and the second fire was caused by his trying to move valuable papers, which he had not realised were burning, into his living room.

He claimed to have tried to contact the fire brigade, but told police he had then given up, left the flat and “started walking, and kept on walking”.

Gary Woodhall, defending, said his client had only a hazy recollection of events, and told the court: "The greatest loss here is his own, because he lost everything he possessed."

He said Hall, an only child, had had little social contact beyond his parents, and when they died, he had become isolated.

He said: "He was obviously in a bad place, and was clearly not well at the time."

Judge Geake told him: "It is to be hoped that while you are in custody you can start to rebuild your life, so that on your release you can move on."