A JILTED lover tormented his former girlfriend with "death" songs by rap singer Eminem before starting a fire outside her house, a court was told.

The lives of Amanda Hartshorn and her young child were put at risk when ex-boyfriend Stephen Hobkirk set fire to furniture in an alleyway near her home and then played the death lyrics to her on the phone.

After their three-year relationship ended, Hobkirk, 21, could not face life without Ms Hartshorn and started the fire while she and her six-year-old son slept.

Newcastle Crown Court was told how Hobkirk pestered Miss Hartshorn with threatening and abusive phone calls and followed her home at night.

Robert Woodcock, prosecuting, said Hobkirk harassed the young mother for weeks before arriving at her home in Washington, Tyne and Wear, in the middle of the night on September 4 last year and started the fire.

As Miss Hobkirk lay asleep with son, Cory, she woke to find black smoke billowing through an open window. She managed to escape unharmed with her son.

The court was told how the couple's relationship ended in August last year and the threats soon followed.

John Wilkinson, mitigating, said Hobkirk was "bitterly, bitterly, regretful for what he had done".

He said: "He remained obsessed by her."

Sentencing Hobkirk, Judge Tim Hewitt told him: "You have pleaded guilty to some very serious offences, including two of arson."

Hobkirk, of The Oval, Concorde, Washington, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two charges of arson and a charge of intimidation, relating to the telephone calls.

He was jailed for three years and given an indefinite restraining order to stay away from Miss Hartshorn.