A HAMPSHIRE man has admitted responsibility for an arson attack that forced his former girlfriend and her two children to flee their top-storey flat after it was torched while they slept.

John Fitzgerald, 23, started the fire in the same block of flats in in which he lived in Maybush, Southampton.

His terrified victim Maxine Cox, 20, had to scoop up her two children, Kayleigh, five, and two-year-old Leon, after waking just after midnight on July 4 to find her 15th-floor Southampton flat engulfed in smoke.

She said afterwards that she feared she and her children would die.

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus led a dozen residents of Sturminster House in Irving Road to safety through thick black smoke. It took them more than an hour to extinguish the flames.

Fitzgerald pleaded guilty at the city crown court to arson when reckless as to whether the life of Ms Cox and the children might be endangered. He was remanded in custody for sentence on October 28.

He denied the more serious allegation of arson with intent to endanger life, which was accepted by the prosecution.

Miss Cox spoke to the Daily Echo of her shock after being led to safety from the blaze.

She said: "It was my worst nightmare.

"I thought we were going to be trapped at the top of the tower block and that my children and me were going to die.

"When I heard the fire alarm I just clicked into auto-pilot.

"I knew I had to get my kids and get out. I grabbed them and raced out.

"The smoke was very thick and it was hard to breath."