A Selby teenager may have tried to start a fire at the home of a disabled woman to get “payback” on her son, a court has heard.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was 14 at the time of the incident, which took place in a village near Selby last November.

Yesterday, Doncaster Crown Court heard evidence from a ten-year-old boy who was with the defendant when he allegedly started a fire in an exercise book, and tried to push it through the victim’s letterbox.

The witness, who cannot be named due to his age, said: “I think they didn’t like each other, and (the defendant) tried to get payback by setting the book on fire and putting it through the letterbox.”

In a police interview, when asked why the defendant wanted to start the fire, the witness said the defendant told him “because me and (the boy) got into a fight and I wanted revenge”.

The witness admitted to the court he had not seen the defendant try to put the burning book through the letterbox, but had been told about it at school on a later date.

The defendant, now 15, denied trying to put the burning book through the letterbox, and said the fire had been another boy’s idea.

He also denied a charge of criminal damage, involving smashing milk bottles two days before the incident.

He told the court he knew it was wrong, and “if it went big and caught on something, it could have set the house on fire, and whoever was in there couldn’t get out”.

The disabled woman’s mother was at the bungalow when the incident took place, and also gave evidence yesterday.

She said she had noticed a light outside the frosted glass of the front door and when she looked through the bedroom window, saw two boys run away, before a third, identified as the defendant, realised he had been seen and ran off, leaving scraps of singed paper behind.

The trial continues.