AN arsonist fuelled by revenge set fire to a woman’s home and trapped her inside after her daughter spurned his plea to become his girlfriend, a court heard.

Christopher Legge, 29, knew the best way to get back at Abigail Noble was to target her mother, Tracie Hudson, at her home in West Moor Road, Darlington.

He built a bonfire of rubbish and cardboard at the front door – the only way in and out of the upstairs flat – and set fire to it in the early hours of June 14.

Neighbour Shaun Stollery spotted Legge acting suspiciously, then the flames, and bravely tackled the blaze while his wife called the emergency services.

He could not wake Ms Hudson, and the first she knew of the life-threatening drama on her doorstep was when firefighters smashed their way into the flat.

Last night, 39-year-old Ms Hudson and her partner, Clare Richardson, 35, said they could have been killed had it not been for Mr Stollery’s quick-thinking.

“He is a hero,” said Ms Richardson. “It is lucky he was there. It doesn’t bear thinking about what would have happened if he hadn’t been. We can’t thank him enough.

“When we found out who had done it, we couldn’t believe it. We were told he stood there and watched the fire burn.”

Ms Hudson added: “If someone can do that to someone they don’t even know, over fancying their daughter, what would they do to someone they really fell out with? He’s a danger to people.”

Legge, of Bardon Moor Road, Darlington, was yesterday convicted of arson with intent to endanger life and faces an indefinite prison sentence.

Judge Peter Fox, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said his obsession with fire was worrying, and imprisonment for public protection was “foremost in my mind”.

Legge, who admitted starting the fire but said he had not intended to harm Ms Hudson, was remanded in custody and will be sentenced next month.

During the day-long trial, the court heard how the pair met on Facebook when Miss Noble was living in Trimdon, near Sedgefield, in June this year.

They met several times in Darlington before Legge asked the teenager to be his girlfriend, and when she declined, he said he was “devastated”.

He posted messages on the social networking site warning Miss Noble that he was going to kill her ex-boyfriend, and then said: “Your mother’s going to get it.”

The court heard how Mr Stollery heard the ripping of cardboard and looked out of his bedroom window to see Legge outside on a grassy area at 12.30am.

Minutes later, the taxi driver got dressed and went outside, and when he saw the front door to Ms Hudson’s flat was on fire, tackled it with buckets of water.

Last night, Detective Sergeant Sean Jackson, who led the investigation, said: “His sole motive was one of revenge and he basically wanted to hurt Miss Noble as much as he felt hurt by her.

“In his mind, the best way to get her back, or the only way he could think of, was by taking it out on her mother. That was the route he took.”