They heard how firefighters initially put out a blaze in a refuse skip – there had been two seats of fire which aroused the initial suspicions of arsonists being at work – in a compound at the rear of toilets in the gardens, near to Cornwall Road, at around 8pm on May 5 last year.

Prosecutor Kathryn Reeve said three men, one wearing a distinctive yellow top, had run from the area when asked whether or not they knew anything about the blaze.

Some 50 minutes later the fire brigade received a further call to attend the gardens where three industrial wheelie bins behind the Magnesia Well Café were well alight.

Firefighters

Miss Reeve said a number of passers-by had stopped to watch the blaze, but they had not been in any danger. And the same three men had been seen sitting on a bench in the vicinity.

They had walked off through trees and as the firefighters were completing the extinguishing of the fires another occurred in a small rubbish bin in Valley Drive.

The court heard that by this time police had arrived on the scene and when they tried to speak to the trio suspected of being the culprits they had run off. There had been a pursuit and the three had been detained some 30 minutes later.

Miss Reeve said one of them, the man in the yellow top, had been 23-year-old Liam John Byrne who had admitted in interview that he had been in the area but had denied any involvement in starting fires. The three men had put the blame on one another.

Arson

Byrne, of Stanhope Drive, Harrogate, had denied arson but had been found guilty after a trial and appeared on Tuesday for sentence.

The court heard another of the culprits, Anthony John Sykes, 19, of Walworth Avenue, Harrogate, had pleaded guilty to arson and had been ordered to do 80 hours of unpaid work and pay costs of £45 and compensation of £478.

A third accused, a 16-year-old youth who cannot be named for legal reasons, had admitted his part in the incident at Harrogate Youth Court and had been made subject to a three-month referral order with similar costs and compensation.

Mitigating for Byrne, Geoffrey Boothby told presiding magistrate Elizabeth Hesp he had lost his job in a fast food restaurant the day before the hearing but hoped to quickly find alternative work with a supermarket chain.

Mr Boothby said Byrne, who had no previous convictions, had gone to the Valley Gardens with the other two to play a game of hide and seek.