A scene of devastation was wrought on a north Manchester neighbourhood after a suicidal man triggered an ‘almighty’ explosion.

In despair after his relationship with his first boyfriend came to a ‘toxic’ end, Kevin Carroll hacked open a gas pipe with the aim of ‘drifting off to sleep’.

The 33-year-old’s actions in January caused injury, shock, panic, financial distress and homelessness to his neighbours.

Now Carroll has been sentenced to 32 months behind bars by a judge who heard he didn’t have an ‘ounce of malice’ in his body and meant no harm to anyone else, but had been in a ‘very dark place’.

Manchester Crown Court heard Carroll drifted in and out of consciousness for hours as his rented, two-bedroom terrace home at Cecil Street, Blackley , filled up with noxious fumes.

Woken by lodger Marc Ryan knocking at the door at about 12.25pm, Carroll sparked a lighter. His defence barrister claims he habitually flicked the dial on his lighter, and was in a confused state when he did it that afternoon. The results were catastrophic.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

“There was an almighty noise, a massive explosion that was felt and seen and heard by a large number of people,” prosecutor Alaric Bassano said.

Marc Ryan had been staying with Carroll and his partner at the property and had called round to change for an interview when the blast went off. The house collapsed into a pile of rubble.

At the scene Mr Ryan was found in ‘extreme shock’.

(Image: PA)

Later, at hospital, Mr Ryan was put in an induced coma and treated for agonising 15 per cent burns, including to his face and head.

The elderly man next door was in bed when the ceiling of his home collapsed on top of him. Witnesses saw him covered in debris, ‘dazed and confused’ in the street, and he was left temporarily homeless.

A woman who lived opposite was thrown from her chair and her uninsured home suffered £2,000 of damage.

The couple two doors down from the seat of the blast were tossed from their bed as their walls cracked and the room filled with dust and smoke. They were treated in hospital for soreness and were also temporarily rehoused.

Crying children at Blackley Academy, which has 465 pupils aged between 3 and 11, had to be evacuated after the school building shook. Two Syrian youngsters were particularly ‘frightened and withdrawn’, staff said.

Incredibly, because he was so close to the seat of the blast, Carroll escaped life-threatening injury, suffering burns to the face. But he and his ex-partner, Richard Playle, lost everything. Carroll later admitting causing criminal damage being reckless whether life was endangered.

Jacqueline Burke, who let the property, her former family home, to the couple, suffered the worst financial loss. The house was worth just £100,000, but she has been told it will cost £135,000 to rebuild, and ad insurers are saying they will only pay out for lost rent.

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“This has had a massive impact on my life and possibly my future financial security”, she said. “I have worked hard all my life and fear I will be financially ruined. I now get up and go to work in order to pay a mortgage for a pile of rubble.”

Nicola Gatto, defending, said Carroll was a well-liked man who had a history of mental health and emotional difficulties, having come to Manchester to study nursing from a ‘narrow-minded’ town in Northern Ireland, and then meeting Mr Playle after getting a job at the ADT security company in the city. The couple were together for 10 years, she said, but by the end Carroll’s ‘self-esteem was on the floor’.

He made repeated attempts to take his own life, and had sought help in November but had been discharged the same day. Mental health professionals have now contacted his legal team to see if ‘lessons can be learned’, Miss Gatto said.

“He feels enormous guilt and very genuine remorse towards anybody who has been affected by his actions,” Miss Gatto added. “He has lost his relationship, he has lost his home, he has lost his job and he has lost his good character,” she went on.

Sentencing, Recorder Mukhtar Hussain QC said the case called for a deterrent sentence to protect the public from a repeat which could have ‘even more devastating consequences’.

“Rather than accepting and realising the relationship had come to an end and moving on, you took it too seriously and tried to take your own life,” the judge told Carroll.

“The fact remains however, that what you did was extremely dangerous and could easily have ended in fatalities. This was a massive explosion with massive consequences.”