A MAN who set his friend’s trousers on fire in a drunken practical joke has appeared at Carlisle Crown Court for causing him grievous bodily harm.

Jack Hills, 20, of Meadow View, Bolton, near Appleby, set fire to the ragged hem of Stephen Davies’s jeans after a night out in Appleby last September.

After Mr Davies fell asleep drunk at the Hare and Hounds pub Hills thought it a good idea to set his trousers alight, thinking he would simply wake up and put them out, prosecutor Alan Lovett told the court.

But Mr Davies slept on, so Hills put the flames out by patting them with his hand, he said.

But in fact the fire was still smouldering and it was some time later that bar staff spotted it and poured water over Mr Davies’ trousers, at last waking him up.

Neither Mr Davies nor anyone else realised he had been hurt, and he went home and just put some cream on his leg, Mr Lovett said.

But when he went to Penrith hospital the next day he found he had 25-30% burns to his leg and needed crutches to walk.

He needed tablets for the pain and was off work for a week, Mr Lovett said.

Hills pleaded guilty to causing Mr Davies grievous bodily harm, but insisted he had not intended to cause his friend any injury.

“Everybody accepts that it was a practical joke,” defence barrister Marion Smullen said. “It was a very stupid practical joke that went wrong.”

Judge Paul Batty QC told Hills it was “an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing to do.”

But he accepted that it was “an ill conceived prank that went very very badly wrong.”

Hills was ordered to do 150 hours unpaid community work and was put under a 7pm to 7am curfew to keep him at home every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening for the next four months.