Arsonist caused £10,000 damage setting fire to front door of own building
An arsonist who set fire to the front door of a block of flats where he lived, causing £10,000 worth of damage, has been jailed for four years and two months.
Kenneth Birch stuck toilet paper in the letterbox of the front door of the complex in Stepping Stones, Stourbridge, and set it on fire on August 30 last year.
It spread into the hallway, leaving firefighters forced to evacuate residents of the four flats and rescue the defendant – who lived on the ground floor – through a window, a judge heard.
Birch had called 999 saying there was a fire and claimed not to know how it had started, Mr Matthew Brook, prosecuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court.
A fire investigation was carried out at the council-owned site, which determined the blaze had been started by someone inside the flats.
