Arsonist jailed for 10 years

Victims Paul and Jackie Clarke appealed to the public for help

A woman who set fire to a Llanelli house while a young family slept inside has been jailed for 10 years.

Sharon Miller, 45, had fallen for a relative of the family, while on remand at Gloucester's Eastwood Park jail where the woman worked as a warder.

The two became lovers after Francesca Westcott left the prison service, but she called off their six-year affair late in 2001.

Miller bombarded her with telephone calls and even assaulted her.

When it became difficult to contact Miss Westcott she turned on her aunt, Dianne Crocker.

The law has to take a serious view when fire is used as a weapon when people are asleep in their beds Judge John Diehl

Miller travelled to Bigyn Road in Llanelli from her home in Somerset armed with gallons of petrol.

She turned Mrs Crocker's home into an inferno by pouring petrol through the letter box--and then did the same to the house next door.

Mrs Crocker and her husband Tony, and neighbours Jacqueline Clarke, her husband Paul and their son Ryan, 8, had a "miraculous escape," said John Hipkin, for the prosecution.

Some leaped from bedroom windows at the same moment as downstairs windows blew out.

'No concern'

Miller had heard that Miss Westcott was planning to live in Greece and the only way Miller had of contacting her was through other members of the family.

When they refused to co-operate Miller, by then a council parking warden in Bristol, became furious and threatened to "put her in a box."

She was convicted of two offences of arson with intent to endanger life.

Sentencing her at Swansea Crown Court on Friday Judge John Diehl said there was "something particularly sinister" about the way Miller had behaved.

He added, "You stole up to unguarded doors and poured inflammable liquid through the letterboxes at the dead of night.

"Then you pushed through paper which you set on fire.

"You showed no concern for the consequences. You must have known people would have been in their beds.

"The law has to take a serious view when fire is used as a weapon when people are asleep in their beds."

'Resentful'

Judge Diehl said Miller, who had previous convictions for attacking pub landlords with glasses, needed to feel powerful.

"Your relationship with Miss Westcott had come to an end. You could not accept that.

"You threatened her with violence and harassed her and her parents.

"You became resentful and acted out of revenge. You took it out on her relatives, people who had never wronged you."

The court heard the Clarke family had decided never to return to live in Bigyn Road because they were still too badly affected by the experience.