Jilted lover gets six years

A jilted lover who tried to set fire to her toyboy outside a Wolverhampton school after she ended their relationship was today jailed for six years.

Yvette Smith hired two men to beat up delivery driver Matthew Hipkins with a baseball bat before dousing him in petrol outside Penn Fields School.

Smith, aged 47, of Langley Road, Merry Hill wept as Judge John Wait said she was a potential danger to any man who started a relationship with her. He ordered that she serve all six years of her sentence.

Mr Hipkins, 14 years her junior, had met Smith at a motocross meeting and the couple were together for seven years.

But in January last year he ended the relationship, which led to Smith hatching "an elaborate" plot to kill him with the help of two thugs who attacked him outside the school, in Birches Barn Road, on June 24, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard today.

Hipkins, who works at Blakemore Food Services in Willenhall, was hit with a baseball bat while dropping off a delivery. Smith then emerged and poured petrol over him.

But she was knocked to the ground by Hipkins and a member of staff from the school before she had the chance to use a lighter. The mother-of-one maintained during her trial that she had intended to set herself on fire rather than him.

But a jury found her guilty of attempted murder in December.

Mr Stefan Kolodynski, defending, told the court Smith, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was "hit very, very hard" after Mr Hipkins left her for a younger woman.

Judge Wait said: "When this relationship ended, you couldn't accept it and planned a terrible revenge. You made sure two men were waiting for him when he made a delivery to the school, and they attacked him with a baseball bat before you poured petrol over him and pulled out a lighter.

"He was terrified and screamed for help. Thankfully others heard his cries."

He added: "Your depressive disorder and personality means you are a risk to Mr Hipkins and any other man you start a relationship with."

Mr Hipkins said this afternoon: "I think the sentence is fair."

West Midlands Police refused to release a photograph of Smith, stating it was still completing a risk assessment into the impact on her of a picture being published.