A dad has been spared jail after setting two vans alight close to their owner's properties after a drinks binge. Andrew Abbott drank a 'prodigious' amount of alcohol on the evening of April 22 last year before setting the vehicles on fire in a 'spontaneous' and 'ludicrous' hour.
Between 10 and 11pm on that evening police received reports of a vehicle being set alight on Longworth Road in Bolton. The first victim, Darren Smethurst, was at home with his family when he received a call from a neighbour telling him his van was on fire.
He ran from the home into an adjoining alleyway where he found his vehicle's wingmirror on fire, before running back inside to grab pans of water to put the blaze out with. A short time later a resident of the same road, Jason Kay, who was asleep in bed got a knock on the bedroom door saying their van was on fire in the driveway.
