A gas blast victim lost everything and one of his pets was killed when a suicidal neighbour severed a gas pipe then flicked a lighter.
Ian Lenaghan caused more than £1m of damage to the terrace of flats where he lived and left those who lived closest to him traumatised. Downstairs neighbour, George Rodham, was watching TV when he heard a "whoosh" and the building collapsed around him while another neighbour said it sounded like a bomb going off.
Mr Rodham, who needed hospital treatment, had no contents insurance and lost every possession he had gathered during his 22 years living on Whickham Street, Sunderland. A court heard Falklands War veteran Lenaghan had made a determined effort to cut through and break a gas hose to his cooker then struck a lighter in an attempt to kill himself after a documentary about the 1980s conflict made him think he had done nothing of value since.
