A MAN who torched his girlfriend's car in a revenge attack and put the lives of a mother and child at risk has been jailed for 18 months.

Neighbours told at the time how the flames started by Luke Thomas Bhanvra's actions in the early hours lit up the entire street.

Richard Butters, prosecuting, told York Crown Court that the blaze in Haxby was so intense it spread to another car and cracked a window in a nearby house where a mother and child were.

Bhanvra told his girlfriend Charlotte Rankin afterwards: "You pushed me to do it. I didn't want to do it, but you pushed me to it."

He appeared to be in a state of shock.

Then he handed himself in to police and told them how he had taken a taxi to a garage where he had bought some petrol, gone to the street where Ms Rankin's car was parked a few feet from a row of terraced houses, used a spade to smash one of the car's windows, poured petrol into it and tossed in a match.

As the car burned, he had filmed it on his phone and sent it via Snapchat, the mobile messaging service which deletes photos and videos shortly after they are viewed.

Mr Butters said Ms Rankin's £7,000 car was written off and the other car was badly damaged.

York Crown Court heard he had threatened to torch her car more than a week earlier.

Window cleaner Bhanvra, 24, of Earl Street, The Groves, York, pleaded guilty to arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered and was jailed for 18 months as his girlfriend watched from the public gallery.

His barrister Abdul Shakoor said: "He simply lost it."

He had been going through a difficult time in his relationship with Ms Rankin and believed she had found a new partner. He had started drinking and reached a point at which he felt he couldn't take any more.

He had known when he went to her car outside her house in the early hours of August 20 that she was not in, but he hadn't known about whether anyone was in the neighbouring house.

The couple were now back together, he said, and he handed in a letter from Ms Rankin. He also handed in letters from Bhanvra's current employer, whom he said would hold open Bhanvra's job until he was released and from a past employer.