A WOMAN who tried to frame her neighbour for burglary, and vandalism she committed herself, has been jailed.

Arsonist Chloe Marie Cochrane, 22, didn’t like the 54-year-old woman who lived near her in Fossway, York, said Rob Galley, prosecuting.

So she trashed her own flat by throwing paint and furniture about.

Then she put her neighbour through an eight-month police and court ordeal by making a false police statement that the neighbour had burgled her flat, stolen items from it and done all the damage.

That led to the neighbour being prosecuted. When the older woman stood trial, Cochrane repeated her lies in the witness box, but the prosecution realised she was lying and eight months after the police first started investigating the case, the neighbour was acquitted.

Cochrane also started a fire in her own ground floor flat that she said the other woman “deserved”.

The stress of the whole affair affected the victim so much it made her physically ill and affected her emotionally and mentally.

Cochrane, 22, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and arson and was jailed for 32 months at York Crown Court.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, said: “You very wickedly for a period of time about eight months persisted in a lie in respect of your neighbour. Custody is unavoidable for this activity.”

He added that by starting a small fire in her flat and then going out leaving it burning she had committed a “very dangerous” act.

For Cochrane, Georgina Goring said she had mental health problems and had been diagnosed as suffering from “complex post traumatic stress disorder” as a result of abuse she had suffered as a child.

Cochrane didn’t know why she had thrown the cigarette into a rubbish bag starting the fire or why she had tried to frame her neighbour.

The neighbour first appeared before York Magistrates Court four days after Christmas last year, charged with burglary with theft and burglary with intent to commit criminal damage in August 2016.

She denied both allegations and stood trial in March. The case was adjourned after Cochrane gave evidence but it wasn’t until May 31 that the CPS formally dropped the charges.

Mr Galley said Cochrane told people including a social worker and her father in April what she had done.