A 14-year-old boy has apologised after admitting to starting a £1m fire at a disused factory in Sudbury. 

The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, was before Suffolk Magistrates’ Court on Thursday after admitting to arson while being reckless as to whether life was endangered and given a 12-month referral order.

The teenager admitted to starting the fire at the derelict Delphi Systems factory, in Newton Road on May 28 this year.

Fire crews and police officers from across the county were called to the blaze at about 5.10pm.

The owner of the factory, Muhammed Asjad, said the fire had “gutted and decimated” the building and repairs will cost over one million pounds.  

A friend of the boys made a statement read to the court that a group, including the defendant, had met up at the factory.

All of them went through an opening and the defendant went upstairs, prosecutor Shifa Siu explained.

He began shouting, saying he had started a fire by setting alight an office chair when they told him to put it out, he refused and wanted them to look at it.

The defendant told the court he had been handed a lighter by someone else and burned a piece of paper on the chair.

After the fire began, the group left the building and went to a fish and chip shop but when the defendant saw the smoke of the fire he ran home and called his mother saying “I’ve done something stupid”.

The boy and his mother then went to the police station where he admitted the offence.

He told the court: “I feel terrible and in the moment, I wasn’t really thinking, I didn’t think it could get that big.

“I shouldn’t even have been in the building in the first place. I’m sorry that it happened.

"I’m never going to be put in this situation again because I’m going to think before everything I do.”

Chair of the bench Graham Higgins said the boy had shown remorse and gave him a 12-month referral order and ordered his mother to pay court costs of £111, with no order for compensation.

A referral order is the community sentence most often used by the courts when dealing with 10 to 17 year olds, particularly for first time offenders who plead guilty.