A mentally ill man who set his home on fire as a cry for help because drug users were making his life a misery has been sentenced to a community order with a package of measures to help him.

Carl Haigh had now moved out of the charitable housing accommodation in Murgatroyd Street, West Bowling, Bradford, and was doing well on his medication, Bradford Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

Recorder Ben Nolan QC urged him to talk to his probation officer next time he felt desperate.

Haigh, 41, pleaded guilty to arson on October 9 last year by using lighter fluid to start a blaze that caused £1,620 worth of soot and smoke-blackening damage.

Prosecutor Jade Edwards said he had a history of problems with schizophrenia and extreme anxiety.

Three days after he had started the fire, which burnt itself out, the housing charity did a welfare check and found his home in disarray. They looked through a window and saw a smashed table and mirror.

They went for spare keys and entered he property to find it unoccupied.

Furniture was broken and black marks round a door led them to the fire-damaged room.

There was a bag of electrical items where the blaze had been started and the trip switch on the meter board was turned off.

Neighbours reported hearing the fire alarm on October 9, Miss Edwards said.

Haigh, who had left the address to go and live with relatives, was treated by the police as a missing person and traced.

He told officers he was really sorry for what he had done.

A report from his probation officer, described him as vulnerable and not assertive enough to say no to the wrong people.

He was being taken advantage of by local drug users who were turning up at his address increasing his state of anxiety.

Haigh was now stabilised on his medication and doing well, the court heard. He was a drug user himself but he was receiving help to get off illegal substances.

Recorder Nolan said Haigh clearly had serious mental health problems.

“This was a reckless and dangerous thing to do but a cry for help on your part,” he told him.

Haigh was sentenced to an 18-month community order with 30 rehabilitation activity days and a six-month Drug Treatment Requirement. He must also do 120 hours of un-paid work.

Recorder Nolan told Haigh he “would have a busy few months.”