AN ARSONIST put the lives of a mother and her three children at risk by pouring petrol through a letter box and setting it on fire at their Hapton home today.

Mrs Jane Waddington was in the living room of the council house in Lancaster Drive while her three children Louise, four, Hayley, three, and baby Gemma, three months were asleep upstairs. Her husband Barry was at work.

Neighbour Melanie Harrison said she had been with Jane yesterday evening and she kept on getting pizza and Indian food deliveries which she had not ordered.

Then at 12.20am Mrs Waddington left the living room to go upstairs and discovered the hallway carpets were on fire.

Firefighter Nick Sutcliffe said she put the flames out with a wet towel and when two appliances from Padiham arrived they were only needed to vent smoke from the house. He said: "Petrol had been poured through the letter box and then set on fire. The fire was only a few feet from the stairs and it was very lucky that the woman spotted it when she did because it would have taken hold pretty quickly and spread up the stairs."

Melanie said: "It's pathetic. I can't understand how anyone could do such a thing. I went to bed and just saw all these flashing lights and Jane was outside crying and screaming.

"I took them in and they stayed here until about 3.45am when the smoke had cleared from the rooms."

Another neighbour Karen Ingham took Louise in because she suffers from asthma. She said: "It was very fortunate for the children that Jane came out of the living room when she did because the fire could have easily left the children trapped upstairs."

Neither Mr or Mrs Waddington was at home today and neighbours said they believed they may have taken Gemma to hospital because she was suffering from smoke inhalation.

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