A prison inmate who used miniature pots of jam to set fire to his cell must spend an extra year and ten months in jail.

James Donoghue pushed a mattress up against his cell door and ignited the preserve.

The fire brigade had to be called to Perth Prison after 33-year-old armed robber Donoghue damaged two cells in a day within hours of being moved to the maximum security jail.

Sheriff Fiona Tait told him: "The court will take a serious view of any wilful fire-raising, even more so in a prison setting."

Fiscal depute Gavin Letford told Perth Sheriff Court: "The accused buzzed on the intercom. He asked about his medication but it was explained he would not receive it until he had been assessed by the doctor.

"They heard a noise over the intercom which sounded like something breaking. The officer went to the cell and saw that the sink had been extensively damaged.

"The accused said it was because he had been refused his medication. He was left in the cell to calm down. Later in the evening he was moved to another cell.

"He vandalised that cell. There was damage to a mirror, sink, cupboard and spyhole."

Some time later Donoghue was heard shouting "fire" and when officers looked in they saw the mattress pressed against the door and flames rising from the floor.

Solicitor Jim Laverty, defending, said: "He was admitted to Perth Prison on July 16. There was some difficulty in relation to his prescribed medication.

"Sachets of preserve or jam had been given to him and he placed these in the spyhole and set fire to them. The fire never took hold of the mattress.

"These had been pots of preserve or jam which had been placed in the spyhole and had then fallen to the floor. He accepts what he did was the wrong way to go about things."

Donoghue, of Wiston Place, Dundee, admitted two charges of vandalism and a third of setting fire to his cell and causing smoke damage in July last year.

He was initially jailed for nearly five years in 2011 after clambering through a student's flat window and robbing him at knifepoint.

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