A man who burned down an elderly widow's house after mistaking it for David Cameron's home was today detained under the mental health act.
Joseph Stead, 35, had intended to petrol bomb the ex-PM's home in the village of Dean, near Witney, Oxfordshire, but struck the house next door, a judge heard.
It is understood that Stead, a paranoid schizophrenic, had made homophobic allegations against Mr Cameron and printed out pictures of his home.
A judge at Oxford Crown Court ordered Stead to be detained in a secure psychiatric hospital under the Mental Health Act, saying that he was a risk to the public.
It was heard yesterday how obsessed Stead torched the wrong house, setting fire to an £800,000 farmhouse belonging to an 82-year-old woman - who had been staying at her son's house at the time - on March 9 last year.
He was stopped by the woman's son and grandson, while police later found searches for Mr Cameron on his computer.
Sentencing the arsonist to a Section 41 hospital order with restrictions, Judge Nigel Daly said: 'I consider there is a real risk that if he is released from hospital, if he is not under the day-to-day care of persons who can make sure he takes his medicine as appropriate, there would be a risk to the public of serious harm from him.'
Joseph Stead, 35, had intended to petrol bomb the ex-PM's home in the village of Dean, near Witney, Oxfordshire, but struck the house next door (pictured above), a judge heard
Checks on Stead's computer showed he had searched the internet for the village where former Conservative leader David Cameron (pictured in May this year) lived
Prosecutor Jonathan Stone said Stead had travelled from his home in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, through Aylesbury and Oxford to the village of Dean, near Chipping Norton.
Checks on his computer showed he had
