A five-year-old boy has burned out his own bedroom in the hope that his family would move away from a gang that is terrorising them.
Jimmy Davis took the drastic action as he thought his family home in Swindon would be ruined and they would have to move, but firefighters contained the blaze to one room.
His mother Pauline, 43, who revealed the family have been plagued by neighbouring youths since last summer, said: "We keep speaking to him asking him why he did it and he said 'because I wanted to move, mum'."
She told the Swindon Advertiser: "That's what he told the police - he'd done it because he wants daddy and mummy to move."
Her husband Sydney, 66, confronted the youths but since then their home has been attacked with sticks, mud and eggs and a brick was thrown through their back door.
Mr Davis said his family could not leave their home while the damage was repaired in case the vandals returned.
Even if the council offered to rehome them on a permanent basis, he said he would not want to back down and move away.
Speaking about the fire, he said: "I'm lucky Jimmy had the sense to come out and shut the door otherwise it could have been 10 times worse."
Jimmy ran downstairs and out of the back door without telling anyone what he had done, but his mother spotted smoke billowing from the windows as she returned home from her sister-in-law's house.
Toys and games in the bedroom Jimmy shares with his older brother Peter were destroyed.
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