Drunk Hucknall woman started blaze with pasta pan that gutted her home and damaged neighbouring houses

Rachael Hutchings went upstairs to lie down, but the pan boiled dry and when she woke up and realised the gas hob was on fire, she threw a tea towel over it, which made the blaze worse.

She ran outside her then home, on the Welbeck Estate, to raise the alarm, at 3.50am, on January 5, last year, said prosecutor Abigail Joyce.

Doorbell camera video showed her “pacing frantically” outside, calling her neighbours’ names and shouting that she didn't mean to do it.

Nottingham Crown Court heard that Hutchings, aged 40, drank vodka and rang an emergency hotline, in the hours before the fire started.

A neighbour climbed a fence with a hose pipe and the fire service was called, but the flames spread through the mid-terrace house, leaving it "uninhabitable."

The flames were so intense they broke through the ceiling into the roof void and caused considerable damage to neighbouring houses, Ms Joyce said.

Philip Bown, mitigating, said Hutchings had endured a "long battle with mental illness," with "a variety of diagnoses over the years."

He said she contacted the community psychiatrist three months previously, but missed her first appointment.

Another meeting had been scheduled for three days after the fire broke out.

Mr Bown said that, aside from two lapses, Hutchings hadn't drunk alcohol for nine years, but because of her “high mental state” she did drink over the Christmas period.

“This has has been a big wake up call,” he said. “She is very remorseful.”

The court heard Hutchings hasn't drunk alcohol since the fire, and has been assessed as a "low risk" of re-offending by the probation service.

Hutchings, 40, of Coniston Road, Hucknall, pleaded guilty to arson on a reckless basis, at the crown court, on November 3, last year.

On Friday, Recorder Stuart Sprawson handed her a 22-month prison sentence, but he suspended it for two years, along with 45 rehabilitation activity days.