An "out-of-control" 11-year-old boy, who started a blaze at a club while 60 pensioners were playing bingo inside, has been locked up.

As the club was being evacuated, the boy - who will spend 30 months in a secure unit - set fire to stacks of paper in a wheelie bin at a nearby block of flats.

Bradford Crown Court was told that within days of being given police bail after being quizzed about the blazes, he burgled a funeral director's and in July he assaulted his care worker. He was also found in possession of drugs.

Yesterday the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, broke down in tears as a judge told him he was 'a significant risk' to the public, and sentenced him to be locked away for 30 months in a secure unit.

He was escorted from the dock to begin his sentence after hugging his mother and aunt.

Judge Stephen Gullick heard that in May this year the boy, who has been fascinated with fire from an early age, stuffed paper into an extractor fan in the toilets at Bingley Working Men's Club and set light to it.

The 60 people playing bingo inside had to get out of the building as staff put out the blaze, which caused extensive damage.

Judge Gullick told the boy: "In the last 12 months your behaviour has deteriorated alarmingly.

"The documents I have read reveal that you have had a fascination with fire from a very young age.

"I, too, have come to the view that your behaviour is out of control and that in relation in particular to setting fires you present a high, and therefore significant, risk to the public.

"In your present state the public are at significant risk of being caused serious harm by you.""

Prosecutor Lesley Dickinson told the court that when the boy was questioned about the fires at the club and in the wheelie bin at nearby York Crescent he claimed not to have known there was anyone in the club at the time, and said he had been bored.

Five days after being given police bail the youngster was involved in burgling a funeral director's in Bingley and in July he assaulted his own key worker after becoming aggressive and abusive to staff at the children's home where he was living.

Miss Dickinson said the key worker had tried to calm the boy down but she was spat at and bitten on the arm.

In June supervision and parenting orders were imposed on him for a series of other offences, including five house burglaries, criminal damage and possessing cannabis.

The boy admitted offences of arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered and arson. He also admitted a theft charge relating to property stolen from the Bingley Voluntary Action Centre, common assault on his key worker and the burglary.

The boy will serve 15 months in detention before being released, but he will then be subject to an extended period of licence supervision for a further 45 months.

Defence barrister Stephen Wood described the youngster as an emotionally and physically vulnerable boy.

He said: "He is small in stature. He is liable to influence from older delinquents. In other words he is prone to be used by people he thinks are his friends who clearly are not."

Mr Wood said the boy did not pose a significant risk of serious harm to the public and said his only offence of violence had been short-lived and impulsive behaviour.

The judge was asked to consider lifting the restriction on identifying the youngster, but after hearing submissions he concluded that any publicity could affect the boy's rehabilitation following his release back into the community.

After the hearing, a club official who did not want to be named, said CCTV cameras had caught the boy starting the fire.

He said: "The toilets were gutted but it could have been an awful lot worse if it hadn't been spotted by someone who saw the orange flicker of flames through the glass. I dread to think what could have happened."

A bingo player at the club the night it happened, who also declined to be identified, said: "We're lucky no one got hurt. It could have been a lot worse, it was pretty busy in there and we were all senior citizens. No one panicked, we just got out of there as quick as we could but it was still terrifying to see smoke filling the room like that.

"Everyone knows the lad who did it. He makes peoples' lives hell round here, he's always hanging around causing a nuisance, usually with older teenagers."