Pregnant arsonist spared jail

From the archive, first published Tuesday 12th Feb 2008.

A woman expecting twins wept in the dock as she was spared a jail sentence for setting her house on fire.

A judge told Maria Back, 28, she endangered the lives of her neighbours when she started a blaze at her mid-terrace home.

Back, mother of a three-year-old daughter and heavily pregnant with twins, was warned she could still go to prison.

Judge Kerry Macgill deferred sentence until August 8, telling her he had sent mothers with young babies to jail before.

Back, of Hilldale View, Brighton Street, Heckmondwike, pleaded guilty to reckless arson at her former home in Batley on May 8 last year.

Prosecutor Gillian Batts told Leeds Crown Court today Back lived at the rented house in Victoria Avenue with her partner and young daughter.

She was in the property on her own when neighbours saw flames in the living room late at night.

Miss Batts said Back's immediate neighbours were an elderly woman and a family with children.

The blaze was so ferocious it burned the living room wall through to the brickwork.

The landlord put the repair bill at £40,000.

Back told police she threw a lighted cigarette in a bin after a drinking session that lasted from 2pm that afternoon. She fell asleep and woke to find the fire had taken hold.

Back's barrister, Freddy Apfel, said she was expecting her twins in May.

The court heard she was responding well to an alcohol misuse programme.

Judge MacGill said the arson was "selfish, self-centred and utterly stupid".

Back put the lives of her neighbours in danger and had previously come close to getting an anti-social behaviour order because of the nuisance she caused.

He said Back had been foul mouthed and abusive in drink and he expected her to keep off alcohol in future.

The judge warned Back to continue to mend her ways before he passed sentence in August.