A YOUNG mother who tried to burn down the block of flats where she was living has been jailed.

Trisha Doran pleaded guilty to arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered when she appeared at Worcester Crown Court on Thursday, February 4. She was sentenced to 20 months.

Firemen were called after she set fire to a pushchair and baby clothes in Crown Green Court, St Mary's Street, Worcester, in October last year.

One resident was taken to safety with the use of a ladder.

Damage costing £5,000 was caused by the 33-year-old, said Richard Hull, defending He said she had been misbehaving since her four-year-old daughter was put in a foster home.

Mr Hull said she was holding a knife when police arrived at the complex but it was accepted that she was intending self-harm and was not holding it with aggressive intent.

She has no previous convictions and the offence was out of character.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright said she had put six families at risk in a three-storey building.

It was fortunate that the stairs were brick-built and there was a fair amount of metal in the construction.

This was not one of those occasions where there was highly combustible material which could lead to there being an inferno.

The priority of the sentencing was that she was just not punished but given help in her rehabilitation, he said.