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Paul Pearson admitted starting the blaze at the ground floor end-terrace property on Edinburgh Road in the early hours of August 26 last year.

The 34-year-old then left the building and made no attempt to alert other occupants or the emergency services.

Leeds Crown Court heard how it was only when the smoke alarms were triggered did the first-floor residents make their way downstairs.

Paul Pearson was jailed for ten years for setting fire to his flat in Armley, Leeds

Prosecuting Jonathan Sharp said the residents found a sofa alight in Pearson's flat which they were able to extinguish.

Following a fire investigation, it was determined that the fire had been started in three places, including the sofa, which had been covered in white plastic bin bags.

The kitchen door to the flat had been wedged open with a bin which was set alight, as well a towels which he had placed at the base of the door.

The heat had been so intense it melted an extractor fan on the ceiling.

Mr Sharp said that it was only through luck and because of the high fire-proofing standards, that the building did not go up in flames.

But he added: "If the sofa bed had caught fully alight and the fire had taken proper hold in the living room, the results would have been catastrophic.

"The opinion of David Cookson, the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service assistant district commander who inspected the scene, is that the fire would have broken through to other parts of the building possibly within minutes."

Pearson, who appeared via video link from custody, had been out of jail on licence at the time after being convicted of actual bodily harm.

The court was told how he had attacked his then-partner with a pair of scissors.

Mitigating, Shila Whitehead, said the suicide of that former partner in 2019 had put him in a low mood and in the hours before the fire, he had been drinking and taking cocaine.

She said: "He was at such a low ebb that day that he intended to take his own life."

Jailing Pearson for ten years, Judge Tom Bayliss QC said: "With full knowledge of the risk to others in the building, you set fire to your flat and left without alerting the authorities or the others.

"Had the fire taken hold, it would have severely compromised the escape routes. The results were potentially catastrophic.

"It's only pure fortune that it was not."

Armley arsonist put residents' lives in danger when he torched his own flat during booze and cocaine binge