A domestic row ended with a man setting fire to a flat he had only bought a week earlier.

Peter Dalton piled clothes and toys on to a cooker and switched it on. But a court heard how a neighbour put the fire out with a bucket of water after he heard 33-year-old Dalton shouting for help.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard how Dalton and his partner Kerry Begley had bought the flat in Glebe Avenue, Braintree, from the council the previous week.

The day before the fire, the couple had an argument and this continued on August 17 last year when Miss Begley told Dalton she was leaving him.

He told her: "If you leave this house, I'm going to burn it down with me in it," the court heard.

Craig Rush, prosecuting, said a short while later, neighbour Steve Price heard Dalton shout 'Steve, help me' and when Mr Price looked over his fence, he saw smoke and flames coming from the flat and Dalton waving his arms in the air.

Mr Price managed to put out the fire with a bucket of water. Dalton told him: "Do you know what I was trying to do ? I was trying to burn my house down."

Dalton received hospital treatment for a burn to his hand. Miss Begley was not in the flat at the time.

Dalton admitted a charge of arson and was given a two-year rehabilitation order. A condition of the order is that he attends a domestic violence course.

Judge Chris Ball QC told Dalton if he broke the order, he was facing two years in jail.

The court heard Dalton had been in custody for five months - the equivalent of a ten month sentence.

Alex Agbamu, mitigating, said Dalton remembered very little about the incident as he had been drinking and had taken drugs at the time.

He now accepted it was a very dangerous and foolish thing to do especially as he had just bought the flat, Mr Agbamu added.

He had repaid his partner for the damage caused to her property and she was still with him, he added.

Published Friday, January 21, 2005

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