A WOMAN who set fire to her neighbour’s flat door because she wanted to 'teach her a lesson' following a row has been jailed for five years.

Bolton Crown Court heard how Elspeth Bridge rolled up wallpaper soaked in turpentine and shoved it into the letterbox at disabled Sharon Turnbull’s home on Beatrice Mews, Horwich.

Then she watched from her own home across the road as flames took hold and as Miss Turnbull’s former partner doused the fire with washing up bowls of water.

Brian McKenna, prosecuting, told the court how Miss Turnbull, who has mobility difficulties, lived in a first floor flat which has only one ground floor entrance.

She often needed assistance to get in and out of her home and, for a time, was helped by 52-year-old Bridge, who would do her neighbour’s shopping for her.

But Mr McKenna said a dispute developed between Bridge and Miss Turnbull’s mother about money and so the defendant decided to hit back by starting a fire.

“She said she committed this act of arson because she was angry and wanted them to know she was angry,” said Mr McKenna.

On the evening of July 23 Miss Turnbull’s former partner and carer, Jamie Holden was visiting her and the pair fell asleep on the sofa watching television.

But at 2.45am Mr Holden was awoken by the flat’s smoke alarm going off.

“He went to investigate to the front door of the premises to find it to be engulfed in flames,” said Mr McKenna.

Mr Holden managed to put out the blaze with four washing up bowls of water and the emergency services were called.

Police found remnants of rolled up wallpaper stuck in the letter box and found matching rolls at Bridge’s home.

She also showed them where she kept the bottle of turpentine she had used to soak the paper.

Miss Turnbull’s door was damaged and parts of her flat suffered from smoke damage, but no one was injured.

Bridge pleaded guilty to arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

Ahmed Nadim, defending, said Bridge was of previous good character but had suffered from “distorted thinking” on the night of the arson attack. He stressed that she intended to scare her victim but was not planning to hurt anyone, knew the flat had a smoke alarm and had kept watch ready to summon the fire service if the flames got out of hand.

Jailing her, Judge Graeme Smith told Bridge: “It was utterly out of character and appears a spontaneous act on your part because of misplaced anger and redirected anger.”

However, he described her attempts to “teach a lesson” to her neighbour as “reckless in the extreme.”