Hay barn 'lover' is jailed

The pair were both naked when the fire began

Two lovers were forced to flee naked after candles they set up for a romantic liason in a Leicestershire barn set fire to more than 3,000 bales of hay.

Michael Hazzard, 23, and Rebecca Scott, 18, had placed the candles around the barn at Red Gables Farm as they lay naked in each other's arms.

The court was told that the pair fell asleep but woke to find the barn on fire, and were then forced to run naked across a field to escape.

Hazzard, from Swadlincote in Derbyshire, admitted one charge of arson in October last year and was jailed for nine months.

Exploding roof

The court heard the cost of the pair's midnight meeting was £24,000 in damage - and left underinsured farmer David Collington £5,000 pounds out of pocket.

The prosecution said the couple went to the Dutch barn on the 14-acre farm in Appleby Magna at 2330 GMT.

Richard Nicholls, prosecuting, said Mr Collington was called out some hours later and discovered the roof of the barn "crackling and exploding".

Hazzard was arrested after the farmer spotted him walking past the scene and decided to follow him and point him out to police.

'Extraordinarily foolish'

He confessed that on the night of the fire he had drunk half a bottle of vodka and lit three candles as he lay naked in the hay.

Mark Wyatt, defending, said the fire was the result of carelessness rather than a deliberate attempt to start a blaze.

At an earlier hearing prosecutors decided to offer no evidence against Miss Scott, of Appleby Magna, after she denied arson.