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Damaged caused by the fire at the Avenue, West Moors - January 2018.

A spurned "obsessive" boyfriend who destroyed his former partner’s £400,000 house by torching it while she was out has been jailed for more than six years.

Phillip Evans broke into Emma Paul’s home on a quiet suburban street, doused the interior in acetone and set fire to it.

The 55-year-old said he wanted to kill himself in the blaze but ended up jumping from a first floor window after the heat got too intense.

Miss Paul, 42, was left with nothing but the "clothes on her back" following the devastating fire on January 9 this year.

She felt she had a guardian angel that day as she would have been at home if she hadn't mistakenly gone to a physio appointment on the wrong day.