A patient who caused £2 million worth of damage after starting a fire in a hospital A&E department has been jailed for more than six years. John Watson, 57, was captured on CCTV prowling the corridors of Lincoln County Hospital before setting fire to the contents of a medical trolley last March.
The department had to be closed for 48 hours after damage was caused to a CT scanner, MRI machine and a mobile ultrasound machine as a result of the blaze. A court heard Watson entered the hospital as a patient before setting the fire in an imaging room just off the main A&E department in the early hours of March 29.
Sick and injured patients had be evacuated from the busy A&E as a there was a "huge risk" of igniting medical oxygen piping running through the hospital. Detectives found CCTV showing a man wearing a distinctive black jacket with Elvis on the back – later identified as Watson – in an area being engulfed with smoke before he was moved by firefighters.
