A MECHANICAL engineer has confessed to setting a friend’s tutu on fire during an England World Cup match.

Victim Stephen Barton was left with five degree burns after the grass skirt he was wearing caught fire in a beer garden behind Bacup’s Swan Hotel.

Burnley Crown Court heard that his friend David Riley, 46, had set the tutu alight ‘as a drunken prank’ which went wrong.

The victim, then aged 27, Riley and their partners had been in the Market Street pub watching the England vs USA match on June 12 last year.

One of the women had been wearing the skirt, the court was told, before Mr Barton decided to try it on.

The court heard Riley had admitted putting the lighter to the skirt.

He could not say he did set it alight, nobody saw him do it, but he had owned up to trying.

Riley, of Albert Terrace, Bacup, admitted attempted arson and was bailed for pre-sentence reports.

The court heard that the victim suffered five per cent burns the medical evidence suggested he had made a full recovery within weeks, but there would be scarring.

Remanding Riley on bail, Judge Beverley told the defendant he had been stupid and that all sentencing options, including imprisonment, would be considered at the sentencing hearing on March 17.

The judge also ordered an up-to-date medical report to be produced about the victim’s scarring.