A SERIAL arsonist who started a fire in a hospital’s intensive care unit has been jailed.

Drink and drug-addled Terrance Harvey wandered into the intensive care unit at Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital and locked himself into a quiet room.

He began a fire which caused damage to curtains and carpets and destroyed a television, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Nursing staff put the fire out and were also forced to move neighbouring patients elsewhere.

Harvey, of Tennyson Street, Middlesbrough, admitted arson, being reckless as whether life was endangered, criminal damage and possession of a class C drug on December 19 last year.

The 31-year-old had been drinking and had taken Zopiclone tablets, strong medication which is intended to help insomniacs.

Prosecutor Emma Atkinson said Harvey had a history of setting fires and had gutted his grandmother’s own home in a blaze.

He also tried to light fires while a pupil at his former school, which led to him being excluded.

Harvey, who also a conviction for robbery, was clearly not thinking properly at the time, his barrister Robert Mochrie said, and he described his actions as “quite bizarre”.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton said it was of deep concern that Harvey had acted the way he did and said there was no reason for him to be in the hospital.

He said: “Fortunately no great damage was done, but you accept from your guilty plea that lives could have been endangered.

“Many of those affected were not in a position themselves to make an emergency exit and the very fact they were moved might have been detrimental to their health.

“There were consequences for the inpatients and a cost to the public.”

He said Harvey was dangerous and jailed him for four years, eight months.

The defendant will also serve a three-year extended licence period on his eventual release from prison.