by Julia Roberts

A drunk teen who torched the home of his babysitter has been locked up.

Terry Payne, 18, and pal Stephen Whiting, 19, caused £15,000 worth of damage to the house in Maidstone.

Maidstone Crown Court heard it was "drunken behaviour with absolutely devastating consequences".

Payne doused a petrol can onto the ground outside the maisonette home of Cherry Garstang in Durham Close, Shepway.

Whiting then lit the fuel and the flames spread rapidly.

Shocked by the ferocity of the fire, the youths then panicked and fled.

Both Mrs Garstang and her ex-husband Robert, who was visiting her at the time, were trapped in the first-floor flat.

Mrs Garstang had looked after Payne when he was a child.

Mr Garstang, who suffered smoke inhalation, later told police he thought his life was over.

Mrs Garstang, who is in her 60s and suffers from bipolar disorder, had to be rescued from her balcony.

The blaze destroyed her home and she lost virtually all her personal possessions.

A few weeks later she had to be admitted to a psychiatric unit and now lives in sheltered accommodation.

Prosecutor Christopher Simpson told the court the youths' visit in the early hours of May 1 to the home of the woman Payne viewed as his grandmother was amicable.

"This was not a deliberate targeting of Cherry Garstang," explained Mr Simpson.

"It was drunken behaviour with absolutely devastating and appalling consequences."

Payne, of Brisching Lane, Park Wood, and Whiting, of The Cockpit, Marden, admitted arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

They denied arson with intent to endanger life and this was left on file.

Both were handed three-and-a-half years behind bars.

The court heard that the ground-floor maisonette also suffered smoke damage and the family living there had to be re-homed for three weeks.

Ordering that Payne and Whiting be locked up in a young offenders' institution Judge Martin Joy said he accepted both were "undoubtedly very drunk" and had shown genuine remorse and regret.

He also referred to an "impressive and moving" letter written to him by Payne.

Payne and Whiting will serve half their sentences less 192 days and 97 days already respectively spent in custody or on an electronically-tagged curfew.