A PYROMANIAC arsonist started a fire that put 11 families at risk - two weeks after being released from a mental hospital.

Tim Hawkins spent seven years at the Langdon Hospital in Devon after being sentenced under the Mental Health Act in 2014 for trying to burn down a Somerset church.

He was under a Hospital Order with a restriction, meaning he could only be released with the approval of Minister of Justice Dominic Raab or officials acting on his behalf.

Hawkins was freed on the recommendation of psychiatrists in October and moved from the hospital at Dawlish to a flat in Exeter.

He stopped taking medication and spent his £3,000 savings on a two-week cocaine binge before deliberately starting a fire in his living room on November 11.

He piled chairs onto a sofa, covered them with a blanket, and used an aerosol spray before setting light to the flat and running into the street.

A young family lived in the flat above and ten others lived in the other apartments in the council-owned block.

A passer-by saw smoke and flames and called the fire brigade.

The building was evacuated without anyone being hurt and Hawkins was arrested after returning to the scene.

He told a fire officer he wanted to burn the place down so he could go back to hospital.

He mocked the police for taking so long to arrive, saying in interview: “I could have burned down ten more places before you got here.”

The fire caused £35,000 damage and the other families were kept out of their homes until the building had been made safe.

Hawkins, 29, originally of Birds Close, Crewkerne, admitted arson, being reckless whether life was endangered.

He was jailed for three years and four months by Mr Recorder Neil Millard at Exeter Crown Court.

He will be transferred back to a psychiatric unit when he is released at the halfway stage of his sentence.

The judge told him: “This was a serious matter because other people lived in the building and were put at risk.”

Adrian Chaplin, prosecuting, said it was likely Hawkins was coming down from the effects of ‘hoovering up’ £3,000 worth of cocaine following his release from hospital.

Lee Bremridge, defending, said Hawkins suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He said Hawkins would find it very hard moving to prison after having been recalled to hospital after the fire.

At Taunton Crown Court in December 2014, Hawkins admitted three counts of arson.

The most serious was at Crewkerne parish church in June 2014 by setting light to altar cloths and pews, causing £20,000 damage and disrupting services.

He also started two fires by setting light to timber at Bincombe Beaches Nature Reserve, near Crewkerne, causing £5,000 damage.

A doctor’s report prepared for that case diagnosed him as suffering from pyromania.