EIGHT people were forced to flee their homes after a drunken man torched a block of flats, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Richard Tomes set fire to bedding which he piled on to a chair on a landing because friends refused to let him join them inside.

Some occupants were asleep when smoke began billowing from windows of the block in Nightingale Court, Court Street, Evesham, on May 6, said prosecutor Tim Hannam.

Everyone escaped to safety without being injured but fire officer Stephen Fellows told police that burning foam from the furniture had the potential of causing a fatal fire.

Tomes, a 36-year-old father of three, of Rynal Street, Evesham, pleaded guilty to arson while reckless whether life was endangered.

Jailing him for 30 months, Recorder John Price said the former alcoholic had deliberately tried to accelerate the blaze using bedding - and then left the scene.

He had reduced the sentence, however, after hearing how the defendant had quit drinking and become a decent family man again.

Tomes tried to talk his way into a flat while very drunk.

He went away upset and got bedding which he set alight.

After staggering home, he confessed his crime to his wife Lindsey, said Mr Hannam.

Tomes had been an alcoholic for many years and had twice tried to kill himself, said defence counsel Naomi Gilchrist.

He lost a number of jobs and his wife insisted he leave their house on schooldays before the children got home.

But the offence had "shocked him to the core".

He had not touched drink for six months and had received counselling.

Miss Gilchrist said he was a changed man and was now a proper husband, helping his wife and decorating their home.

Tomes wept in the witness box as he explained: "It was like a nightmare.

"I've got demons, and when I drink the demons come out."