An Angus woman who set her flat alight with her mother inside will carry out her sentence in the care of mental health services.
Rada Lace set fire to the curtains in Warddykes Road, Arbroath on June 3 last year, and previously admitted a charge of wilful fireraising on indictment.
The 33-year-old appeared from custody at Forfar Sheriff Court, where the court heard mental health professionals had compiled two reports which detailed a troubled period leading up to the offence.
She had been on remand for a year and serving an interim compulsion order at the Carseview Centre next to Ninewells Hospital, after a period of time in custody at Cornton Vale.
Defence agent Brian Bell told Sheriff Gregor Murray: “It is clear at the time of the offences she had mental health issues and the recommendation in the report is for a compulsion order.
“She was moved from Cornton Vale to Carseview on the 16th of September last year and in terms of her health she is much better.”
Sheriff Murray imposed a six-month compulsion order on Lace, which can be extended by a psychiatrist on review.
He told Lace: “I’m glad to see you are a lot better.
“Had it not been for your mental health condition at the time, it would have been unlikely you would have offended.”
It emerged during proceedings that doctors refused to admit Lace to hospital despite branding her a danger to the public, hours before she set her flat alight.
Lace had been spotted on the A92 near Carnoustie in the middle of the night wearing only a dressing gown.
She was taken to Stracathro Hospital in a “catatonic state”, but despite medics saying she was a danger to the public they said they would not admit her.
The police took her to her home in Arbroath and left her in the care of her mother, Anna Lacis.
Ms Lacis told how her daughter had earlier been shouting “unspeakable things” in her car before trying to kick out a window.
Shortly before the fire started, Ms Lacis said, Lace had been “holding something, as if it was a sword.”
She added: “She had wild, sparkling eyes it was non-human. I couldn’t help her, I decided to leave.”
