Kettering arsonist could have caused catastrophic explosion

An arsonist who torched her Kettering flat and could have caused a catastrophic explosion has been locked up.

Lilian Mwaura left her Windmill Avenue home so damaged by flames it was uninhabitable and caused neighbours to be evacuated in the early hours of January 5 last year.

Northampton Crown Court heard investigators found at least two seats of fire - where the blaze started - with one under a pair of curtains.

The second, more worryingly, was a candle under a gas meter.

Luckily nobody was injured or needed treatment - but prosecutor Duncan O'Donnell said the blaze could have ended in tragedy.

He said: "This could have had catastrophic consequences."

The court heard firefighters were called to Mwaura's flat, one of 10 self-contained flats in the building near the Tesco Express garage, after a 999 call at 2.03am.

Mwaura seemed to be intoxicated, speaking semi-coherently when she was taken from her property.

An investigation found the circumstances of the blaze meant there was a "high risk of very serious physical harm" to be caused by the fire spreading or an explosion caused by gas.

Mwaura, 32, later pleaded not guilty to reckless arson but then refused to take part in her trial and a jury found her to be responsible for setting the fire.

She was held on remand at HMP Peterborough and then refused to appear at her sentencing hearing on Tuesday (February 2).

Mitigating, Beverley Da Costa said a doctor's view was that Mwaura was emotionally unstable and questioned whether she fully understood her actions of that night. Her exact motivation for setting fire to the flat was not clear.

She said Mwaura had a difficult start in life and was suspected to have been trafficked to England from Kenya as a teenager.

Ms Da Costa said: "She has been through quite a lot with mental health issues in the background."

But, sentencing, His Honour Judge Rupert Mayo said it was more her alcohol ingestion that "triggered her into this significant and reckless act."

Mwaura was jailed for five years.

She will spend at least half of her sentence in custody before she is released on licence.