A TEENAGER has been arrested after a nine-year-old boy was set on fire with an aerosol can.

Mackenzy Teare was left with burns from his head to his stomach after a 13-year-old friend of his older brother burst into the bathroom while he was in the bath, and set fire to the water using a deodorant spray.

Mackenzy's mother Sarah covered him in a wet towel, after he ran screaming into the kitchen of their home in Scarborough after the attack, which happened last weekend.

She said: "I had just bathed Mackenzy's younger brothers on Sunday morning when I told him to hop into the bath after them.

"I was getting the kids ready and was about to get breakfast on when Mackenzy ran down the stairs screaming. He said he was burning.

"At first I thought he must have scalded himself with hot water but then I noticed his face was all burnt. I couldn't understand it. How had a fire started in the bath?"

Mother of six Sarah covered him in a clean, wet towel and phoned the police and an ambulance, while Mackenzy told her what happened.

He was rushed to hospital by ambulance, then airlifted to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, where Mackenzy is spending his tenth birthday, covered in blisters and bandages in a sterile room to remain infection-free.

Sarah said: "The speed they got us to hospital was amazing. We got there in 15 minutes. And even in his pained, burned state Mackenzy loved it."

The front and left-hand-side of Mackenzy's body, which was above the bath water, have been burned or singed, and his face is now blistered. His hair and eyebrows were singed and his left arm is the worst affected, and his left ear and left side of his neck and stomach were also burned.

Sarah said: "He's got such a beautiful little face, I'm so worried he's going to be scarred. We just have to wait and see how bad it will be."

North Yorkshire Police said a 13-year-old boy had been arrested and bailed on suspicion of wounding with intent.