Harvey CampARSONIST Harvey Camp has been jailed for three years after he dropped a burning cigarette through a footballer's door.

Camp, 20, of Eden Vale Road, Westbury, was the prime suspect in a string of fires across the town in January 2003. In March, he admitted putting the cigarette through the cat flap of Westbury United defender James Dowd's home.

It was the first of seven arson attacks Camp was said to have carried out on January 6 2003.

The six other charges, covered fires at Fountains Court, the Champion Chinese restaurant, in bins behind John Preddy chemists in High Street, The Crescent, Jubilee Close and Rocher Close, were ordered to lie on file.

Camp, who worked at McDonald's in Bradley Road, Trowbridge, was arrested after a serial arson investigation. Police investigated about 50 fires in Westbury between December 2002 and March 2003.

At the sentencing on Friday, Andrew MacFarlane, prosecuting, said Mr Dowd was in bed when he heard a noise at the door shortly after 1am.

"He was trying to get to sleep without success and he heard the scuffing of feet so he turned on his bedroom light having heard the sound," he said.

"He walked into the hallway and saw the shadow of a person through the frosted glass window of the front door.

"He looked on the doormat and saw smoke coming from it and saw what turned out to be a rolled up cigarette."

Mr Dowd ran out of his flat to try and apprehend the person he had seen but lost sight of him as he ran off.

The cigarette was sent for forensic analysis and Mr MacFarlane said that it had a one in a billion DNA match to Camp.

Camp was arrested but denied involvement in the blaze, saying he had been out playing pool at The Crown.

Stephen Mooney, defending, said his client could not explain why he did it, but that he didn't have a morbid fascination with fire.

He said Camp, who had no previous convictions, had been blamed for every fire in the town over a long period of time, which was not the case.

Mr Mooney said after Camp put the cigarette end through the door he had returned to try and put it out when the householder came out.

But when jailing Camp, Judge John McNaught said: "It is a very, very dangerous thing to do.

"Here was a cigarette put through the letterbox into the inside of a house in the early hours of the morning when you could expect people to be asleep.

"I can't come to the conclusion on the evidence I have got that you are a real risk, but I can be suspicious about it."

After the case, DC Alan Hardman said arsonists often don't appreciate the severity of their actions.

"We were having so many fires it was getting really out of hand," he said.

"Camp's mother passed away during the investigation and after she died he admitted some of his involvement.

"He is a very dangerous man and it was very lucky that nobody died."