Shocking footage captured the moment a far-right extremist was engulfed in a ball of flames when he set fire to a historic synagogue on a day commemorating the Holocaust.

Tristan Morgan, 52, was caught on CCTV breaking a window with a small axe before pouring petrol inside and lighting a piece of paper.

But the blaze backfired, leaving Morgan with burns to his arm and hands during the attack at Exeter Synagogue on July 21 last year.

He has now been sectioned under the Mental Health Act indefinitely after psychiatrists found he was suffering from a psychotic episode at the time at the arson attack.

Morgan, a hospital X-Ray technician and self-styled folk singer, was spotted walking away carrying a petrol can and laughing as smoke spewed from the 18th Century synagogue.

He caused £23,000 of damage to the building, but firefighters said the blaze could have been far worse if a boiler inside the room he started the fire in had exploded.

Morgan, from Exeter, admitted arson with intent to endanger life, encouraging terrorism by publishing a song entitled "White Man" to live-streaming website Soundcloud, and having a copy of the White Resistance Manual.

At the Old Bailey on Friday, Judge Anthony Leonard QC handed Morgan a hospital order without limit of time, saying most people would feel "anger and revulsion" for what he did.

Outlining the facts, prosecutor Alistair Richardson said Morgan has "deep-rooted anti-Semitic belief, embodied in a desire to do harm to the Jewish community and an obsession with abhorrent anti-Semitic material".

Morgan made songs "exhorting others to violence" against the Jewish community and had an array of material which "revelled in the degenerate views of Nazi Germany and white supremacists,” the court heard.

Mr Richardson told how Zoe Baker and her partner Samual O'Brien were walking through Exeter City Centre when they heard a "loud bang" and saw an "orange glow and smoke" coming from the grade two listed building.

Concerned that someone might be hurt, they stopped and Ms Baker saw the defendant walking from away carrying a green petrol can.

Mr Richardson said: "He appeared to be laughing, while trying to flatten his hair which she described as looking like it had been 'whooshed up'.”

Morgan appeared "cocky" as he drove off in a Mercedes Vito van, according to the eyewitness account.

When Police arrested him at his home in Alexander Terrace in Exeter, he said: "That didn't take long".

As he opened the door to officers, he smelt of petrol and burning, and had burns to his hands, forehead and hair, the court heard.

As he was put in a police van, Morgan said: "Please tell me that synagogue is burning to the ground, if not, it's poor preparation."

Later, as his burns were being treated in hospital, he told staff "it was like a bomb going off".

His laptops, mobile phone and storage devices also contained anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi material, as well as data showing his hatred for people who were not white.

One document was a 340-page terrorist manual aimed at white supremacists to prepare them for a “race war”.

There were sections recommending targeting synagogues and advice about arson attacks.

Other documents promoted Holocaust denial, “ethnic cleansing” and supposed Jewish global power.

The attack on the synagogue was described as "devastating" for the whole Jewish community.

The court heard the attack coincided with a Jewish feast day commemorating disasters, including the Holocaust.