AN ARSONIST who started one fire at Foss Park Hospital and another at a the home of a sleeping doctor has been jailed for nine years.

Anthony Adamson, 34, refused to come out of his prison cell to be sentenced for a night of fire raising in York that could have had “catastrophic consequences”, York Crown Court heard.

It had also included a racially motivated arson attack on a restaurant in Our Lady’s Row, the 700-year-old set of timber frame properties in Goodramgate.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, said the arsonist’s actions at the psychiatric hospital on the night of August 16 and 17 last year could have led to a two-storey section at its front being evacuated with “traumatic” effects on the seriously unwell patients housed in it.

York Press: Arsonist Anthony Adamson. Pic from North Yorkshire Police

Adamson had also lit a rubbish fire next to a gas pipe at the home of the sleeping doctor.

The judge said: “Had that (the gas pipe) been damaged sufficiently in the fire it could have had catastrophic consequences.

"That is the problem with reckless arson, you don’t know what is going to happen.

“Setting fire recklessly as he did could have resulted in loss of life,” he said.

He declared that Adamson posed a serious risk to the public of committing more serious offences and gave him an extended prison sentence of 12 years consisting of a nine-year prison sentence, plus at least three years’ extended parole after he is released from prison.

He read psychiatric evidence that Adamson does not have a treatable mental illness and has been diagnosed with having a mixed personality disorder.

Adamson, of no fixed address, denied three charges of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered and one of arson and was convicted in February at a trial where he represented himself and told the York jury he had started the fires.

Sentence was adjourned earlier this year so he could prepare his mitigation.

But when he was due to attend the adjourned hearing via a video link to Hull Prison, the prison told the court he had refused to do so.

York Press: The fire damage at Happy Valley Chinese Restaurant, left, and Foss Park Hospital

The judge said he was not surprised. “He has been a difficult defendant throughout the history of this case. I don’t think I am inclined to waste any more time.”

After being assured that Adamson had received all the papers in his case that he needed to prepare his mitigation, the judge sentenced him in his absence.

He read a probation officer’s report on Adamson which said there was a high risk of Adamson starting fires in future with no regard to the potential outcome and there was a high risk of him committing violent offences.

The court heard that Adamson’s lengthy criminal record has several convictions for violence including one for causing grievous bodily harm with intent.