Vigilante grandad torched neighbour's car in Leeds street after finding out he was a sex offender

Christopher Robinson was caught on camera pouring petrol over the man's car before igniting it in the street.

The builder carried out the offence after reading a media report of the neighbour being given a suspended sentence after admitting voyeurism and three counts of possessing indecent images of children.

He had images of girls aged between four and 14 being sexually abused and secretly filmed a 15-year-old girl getting changed in a bedroom.

Robinson and the man lived on Harley Drive in Swinnow, Leeds.

Prosecutor Bashir Ahmed said Robinson drank seven pints before going to his neighbour's home and knocking loudly on the day.

His wife opened the door and Robinson told her that he knew her husband was a sex offender.

She told him to go away and he tried to spit at her.

Around 15 minutes later, Robinson reappeared in the street outside the couple's house.

The neighbour checked his CCTV system and saw Robinson pouring petrol over his Nissan and setting fire to it.

The vehicle, worth £6,000, had to be written off.

Robinson then shouted up to the woman as she was at the bedroom window: "Tell your husband to come down. I'll set him on fire."

The defendant shouted at them: "You have two weeks."

Robinson was arrested a short time later, on March 1 this year, and told officers: "Right, stand up for a paedo.

"Would you want a paedo living two doors down?

"He's got two weeks to move out or I will f****** do it again.

"He is in between two schools - what do you want me to do?"

Robinson was jailed for 16 months after pleading guilty to arson and threatening behaviour.

He has previous convictions for drink driving, racially aggravated criminal damage and battery.

Probation officer Kerrie Wilson told the court: "He recognised he can't take the law into his own hands.

"He was remorseful and recognises the danger his behaviour posed to the public."

Isamel Udin, mitigating, said his client had written in a letter: "I just want to go back to being a good dad and granddad because I feel I have let my family down."

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: "Whilst it was not a revenge attack, it was a vigilante attack.

Sentencing Robinson, he said: "I well understand the emotion that is raised in people when they learn someone convicted of child sexual offences is living in the same street but you have to understand it is for the courts to deal with people and mete out the appropriate punishment.

"What you did that day was wholly unjustifiable."

Robinson was made the subject of a restraining order for five years, banning him from contacting the victims or going near their home.