A fire-starting gran bent on revenge over a Facebook post tried burning down her rival’s home while children were inside.

Naomi Mitchell ignited a plastic bottle loaded with firecrackers and cloth before posting it through Cheryl Apps' door in Ramsgate at night.

A Canterbury Crown Court judge branded the 51-year-old’s actions “astonishingly dangerous” before jailing her.

Nobody was injured in the blaze but there were five children inside the home at the time. One resident caught Mitchell in the act, prosecutors explained.

“Leah Bygrave saw a tea-towel being pushed through the letterbox on fire.

“And she opened the door and saw Miss Mitchell trying to light the tea towel further,” Jennifer Dannhauser, prosecuting said.

Miss Bygrave managed to toss the burning material safely away from the home, which wasn't fitted with fire alarms, Ms Dannhauser said.

“And she opened the door and saw Miss Mitchell trying to light the tea towel further...”

As she did so Mitchell, under the influence of alcohol, could be heard “shouting and screaming ‘that this wasn’t over,’” the prosecutor continued.

The mother-of-three hatched her revenge attack following a dispute which flowed from Facebook, the court heard.

Cheryl Apps’ relative had previously ‘liked’ a picture of a man on the social networking site who Mitchell’s daughter was dating.

The families would soon clash in The Goose pub, based in Harbour Street, Ramsgate, late on October 12, 2018.

“Miss Mitchell had come into the pub and there were crossed words,” Ms Dannhauser explained.

“The groups were dancing, banging into each other on the dance floor.

“The groups were outside, and at some point Miss Mitchell jumped at Cheryl Apps, pulling her hair".

Once Ms Apps returned home Mitchell was recorded on CCTV walking with a cloth in her hand, the court heard.

Following her arrest Mitchell maintained her innocence but she pleaded guilty to arson, being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, before trial.

Her victims described themselves to the court as “incredibly angry” and they “dread to think what Mitchell is capable of.”

“That was an astonishingly dangerous act, there were people present, specifically children...”

Miss Bygrave said she was: “terrified if she was not awake at the time the fire could have killed them all.”

Judge Mark Weekes said: “Following an incident in the public house, during which it seems there was considerable hostility, you decided to take matters further.

“That was an astonishingly dangerous act, there were people present, specifically children.”

Handing down a prison sentence of three years and nine months, the judge added Mitchell’s remorse was “a little limited” with “some form of victim blaming.”

But he accepted Mitchell was “unaware children were inside” the property while she herself acted in “an overprotective” manner.

Phil Rowley, mitigating, said Mitchell suffered trauma since childhood, with the dispute “centering around her adult daughter.”

He stressed Mitchell, of North Avenue in Ramsgate, “acted in a manner in support of her daughter.”

Dressed in a blue shirt and flanked by one dock officer, Mitchell could be seen sitting, occasionally shaking her head.

She waved to her family in the public gallery and mouthed the words “I love you,” as she was led to the cells.