A thug set fire to a house while four children were fast asleep alone upstairs.
Mickel Munn, 38, torched the property then alerted a neighbour to the ordeal and even rescued one of the children himself in a suspected bid to appear 'heroic'.
The four children woke up in darkness in the Birmingham property and surrounded by smoke.
They all began to sob and started coughing while one yelled out for help. It was by 'good fortune' that they managed to escape the burning property avoiding severe harm, a judge concluded.
Birmingham Live writes that the true motive for Munn's actions remains a mystery as he apparently cannot recall the incident, which occurred in 2020, at all.
However, he accepted the evidence against him and pleaded guilty to a charge of arson and being reckless as to whether life was endangered.
The 38-year-old was sentenced to five years and six months at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday, February 28. He turned up at the property at 2.12am to find that the car belonging to the woman living there, who was known to him, was not there.
Prosecutor Kevin Hegarty stated one of her four children was stopping at a relative's address, but another was having a sleepover meaning there were still four children at the property at the time. He added they all fell asleep in the mother's bedroom at the back.
A few 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. They were not disturbed by Mr Munn on entry or exit. The eldest woke up coughing and could hear the other children coughing.
"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 pitched roof of a one-storey extension building.
Mr Hegarty stated by this time Munn and the neighbour were outside and 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 around 2.34am the children's mother returned and 'crashed into the fire engine'. He confirmed up to £25,000 worth of smoke damage was caused to the council house.
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.
"It really is very difficult to work out what was going on in his mind. 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."
He told the court at the time Munn was significantly depressed with his own 'substandard' living accommodation which had issues with mould and caused him a lung infection. Mr Glenser added his client now has suspected Tuberculosis.
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."
She rejected the notion there was a 'causative link' between Munn's depression and decision to set fire to his home concluding his actions were 'deliberate and determined'. Judge Crabb added he had also 'failed to show any real recognition or wrong-doing'.
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