Sick Deborah Pigg risked lives in a series of frightening arson attacks because she craved attention.

The tormented 35-year-old hated her humdrum existence and was desperate to be noticed.

And so the divorcee started the blazes which brought firefighters racing to her Tyneside home.

Today Pigg was ordered to undertake psychiatric treatment after confessing to the arson attacks, which she tried to cover up with a bizarre series of anonymous letters to her solicitor, a judge and even her own father, claiming a mystery fire-raiser was behind the blazes.

Her efforts to be noticed put herself, her neighbours and firefighters at risk, Newcastle Crown Court was told.

The court heard how during one blaze Pigg, 35, was forced to jump from a bedroom window to escape, breaking her leg and foot.

Neighbours fled their homes in their nightclothes as flames gutted her terraced home in Newbiggin Hall, Westerhope, Newcastle.

Police officers who worked on the lengthy inquiry into the blazes, and Pigg's neighbours, spoke of her bizarre behaviour which could have killed.

Pigg had denied a charge of arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered at her house on October 11, 2001.

She also pleaded not guilty to a similar arson charge at the house on May 11, 2001, and denied a third count of setting fire to a Fiat car which had been parked on the drive on June 25, being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.

But she later changed her plea and admitted the first arson charge in October and also pleaded guilty an alternative charge of arson without being reckless at the house in May.

She made her admissions after recovering from an overdose which left her in a coma clinging to life.

Pigg, ordered by Judge David Wood to undergo a two-year rehabilitation order with psychiatric treatment, now lives with her parents.