Twisted Firestarters…

Two ex-pupils who burned down the sixth form block at their former school have been locked up.

Daniel Cross and Kyle Harrison, both 20, started a number of fires on the site of Arnold Hill School.

One of them destroyed the sixth form block, costing the school around £1.6m.

Appearing at Nottingham Crown Court, Cross was sentenced to four years and four months in a young offenders' institution and Harrison three-and-a-half years.

And how were they caught?

Cross, of Roundwood Road, Arnold, and Harrison, of Byron Street, Daybrook, were caught after they left DNA on lager cans they had been drinking from before they started the fire.

Heh!

Ok, well. Let’s hear it, then:

Cross is a registered carer for his father and Edie Leonard told the court in mitigation: "He's not a drinker and doesn't take a lot of alcohol. It's no excuse the fact he was in drink. He and his friend went about setting fires, and clearly it got more serious."

Yes. Clearly. Who'd have thunk it, eh..?

Martin Elwick told the court in mitigation for Harrison: "He has never been through the criminal process before.

"It was a stage in his life where he was with the wrong people, drinking and having a disregard for the property of others.

"He comes from a loving and caring family. This is a completely different person to the one who committed the offences in 2010.

"It is a very different man this afternoon, who has to pay the price for drunken stupidity nearly two years ago."

But pay it he will. And we know they won't serve anything like those stated sentences, don't we?