A SUICIDAL man risked his neighbours’ lives when he tried to set fire to his home as police watched, York Crown Court heard.

Andrew John Nelson, 22, twice called officers out to the block of flats in Tadcaster where he was living, with reports that people wanted to injure him or burn down his home, said Tom Storey, prosecuting.

But although police saw his flat had been ransacked and vandalised, they failed to find anyone other than Nelson, who had been drinking.

While they searched the area, Nelson returned to his flat, put clothing into his oven and turned it on. But police officers spotted what he was doing through his kitchen window, turned the oven off and arrested him for attempted arson.

He told them he “didn’t care for Tadcaster or anything else”.

He also said his life was worthless and he wanted to die and that he was responsible for the ransacking and damage in his flat.

Judge Colin Burn told Nelson: “You must realise once a fire starts, nobody can control it.

“If it had taken hold, not only would you be left with nowhere to live, but also, of course, it could have had grave consequences for the property and persons of other people who live in Rockcliffe Court.”

Nelson, formerly of Rockcliffe Court, but now of Chestnut Court in Hemingbrough, pleaded guilty to attempted arson and was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition he carries out two years’ supervision, a rehabilitation course and 180 hours’ unpaid work.

His barrister, Louise Reevell, said a psychiatrist had decided he was not suffering from any mental disorder or illness.

“He is a naïve young man,” she said. “He is an immature young man for his age and inevitably when he is put under pressure or in stressful circumstances … he doesn’t have the thinking skills one might have expected someone of that age to have, and the copying mechanisms. So he has these outbursts.”