Nurse set her house on fire in desperate bid to kill herself
A NURSE set her house on fire in a bid to kill herself after she lost her job and two grandchildren during a feud with her estranged daughter.
Gail White, 51, sent a text to her daughter saying ‘Please forgive me, can’t take it anymore. All my love, look after yourself’ before torching her living room with a cigarette lighter before going to bed.
She was rescued by firefighters after billowing smoke was seen coming out of her twobedroom terrace house in Bury by her next door neighbour. Nobody was injured in the blaze. Inquiries revealed White had been looking after her grandchildren after they were abandoned by her 30-year old daughter – but they were taken away and she lost her employment when she was unable to cope.
She told police: “I just didn’t want to wake up again. I did not want to be alive. I’d had enough. I lost everything, lost my grandkids and my job.’’
At Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, White admitted arson and was ordered to complete a two-year community order plus 75 hours of unpaid work. The incident on April 17, 2014, arose out of a toxic relationship between mental health nurse White and her drug-addict daughter.
Chloe Fordham, defending, said: “Her daughter since the age of 15, had been addicted to drugs. She moved out of home when she was 16, but constantly turned to Miss White for money to bail her out of difficult situations. At the time Miss White had moved to a rented property with her new partner. The plan was to rent the other property they owned back to her daughter. But in the event her daughter never paid a penny in rent and she left her children with Miss White and continued to live in the house rent free.
“Miss White had to instruct proceedings to evict her daughter and obtain residency for the two children. She was working as a nurse and paying for both of the children to go to private nursery – for one child alone it was £1,840 a month.
“Her daughter then started a relationship with a new man and he regularly asked Miss White for money and took advantage of her and manipulated her. Miss White then split up with her own partner and started feeling very anxious and depressed. She was prescribed anti depressants and had a total breakdown.”
The court heard White was released under investigation and moved to Spain in the belief no action would be taken against her. She was arrested when she returned to the UK to stock up on anti-depressants.
Sentencing the judge Mr Recorder Simon Parrington, told her: “This is a very, very serious offence indeed but I note you told police why you had done what you did. This is a wholly exceptional case – ordinarily you could find yourself going to prison for three to four more years for this offence.
“But in this case it seems for me that really the only person in danger was yourself.”