A man torched a property while four children were asleep inside - having been left home alone for a sleepover. Mickel Munn set fire to the house then alerted a neighbour and even rescued one of the terrified youngsters in a possible ploy to appear 'heroic'.
The youngsters woke up in darkness and surrounded by smoke in the Birmingham property. It was by sheer 'good fortune' they escaped the burning building avoiding serious harm or worse, a judge concluded.
Munn claimed he could not remember the incident, which happened in 2020. But he accepted the evidence against him and pleaded guilty to a charge of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered, BirminghamLive reports.
The 38-year-old, from Stechford, was jailed for five years and six months at Birmingham Crown Court. Prosecutor Kevin Hegarty stated Munn knew the woman who lived at the Erdington house was 'in the habit of leaving the children home alone and sometimes overnight', adding he was also aware of where she kept the front door key. Minutes later he was captured on CCTV carrying something from the kitchen to the living room which was burning.
Mr Hegarty said Munn left in the direction of his car but returned around two minutes later, by which time 'the fire had developed significantly' and smoke was 'billowing from the house'. He told the court the defendant emerged from the burning home again and then went to a neighbour across the road and said: 'There's a fire, are the kids in there?'.
Mr Hegarty said: "The children were oblivious to the fire on the ground floor. At first they thought it was a dream.
"They soon realised it was a serious matter. They got off the bed and tried to switch the light on but the electrics had faltered. The children were in the dark surrounded by smoke."
He continued, saying they were crying while one of them rang their mother 'screaming' before they opened the bedroom window which looked out on to a roof of a one-storey extension building. Despite being 'scared' three of the children jumped from the roof to the ground.
Firefighters arrived moments later to see that Munn was at the window with the fourth and youngest child, who he handed out to safety. One fireman observed the defendant was 'extremely calm and relaxed' the court heard.
Mr Hegarty said the children's mother returned soon after. Munn was arrested at his home later that morning and initially denied starting the fire, despite being shown the CCTV footage which captured him.
Peter Glenser, defending, stated Munn had possibly been drinking which 'doesn't go well' with the medication he was taking, adding he had 'no recollection of what he did'. He said: "We can't readily understand what it was that motivated him because he can't tell us.
"He doesn't know if he was irritated to find the children were abandoned in the night and why their mother went elsewhere, or if he genuinely didn't know the children were in there alone or by doing what he did it was an opportunity to appear heroic in some sort of misguided way."
Judge Samantha Crabb, passing sentence, stated the children would have felt 'terror' at waking in the dark surrounded by smoke and said: "The fact is you set fire to a house in the middle of the night while children slept alone in bed. The risk of serious harm frankly could not be much higher. It is pure good fortune the children were not seriously harmed or worse."
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