THE sentencing of a care worker who set fire to a nursing home has been adjourned.

Darren Stephen Hayes, aged 30, set fire to the basement of Shannon Court in The Haulgh as elderly residents slept upstairs.

The night worker had been suspended from the private care home in Radcliffe Road the morning before the fire on October 9, 2006, after complaints about his behaviour.

That evening Hayes poured petrol around a laundry room which vapourised and ignited unexpectedly, causing a massive fireball that blew him through a door. Firefighters found Hayes in a nearby garden after he staggered from the home in his clothes on fire.

He was badly burned and it was four months before he could be questioned by police in hospital.

Hayes, of Cranbrook Close, Bolton, admitted a charge of arson at a hearing at Bolton Crown Court last year.

He was due to be sentenced yesterday, but the case was adjourned until March 31 for the preparation of reports.

Hayes, who was granted bail, has been told to expect a prison sentence.