A single mother who killed her baby in a fire and falsely claimed it had been started by intruders today walked free from court.

Danielle Wails, 22, received three years probation after admitting killing her four-month-old son, Alexander Gallon.

She had told police that she was tied up with telephone cord by two raiders and knocked unconscious at her two-bedroom home last year.

Wails claimed that when she awoke the living room was alight with her son inside and she had used her tongue to dial 999.

Following the fire in August police launched a manhunt for the fictional men but her story unravelled and she was charged with murder.

On the first day of the trial at Newcastle Crown Court in August Wails pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of infanticide after two psychiatrists agreed she was suffering from postnatal depression and that the balance of her mind had been disturbed.

Today the court heard that Wails had started the blaze at her rented home in the Cowgate area of Newcastle upon Tyne to try and win back the baby’s father Robert Gallon. The pair had split after a series of rows.

Paul Sloan QC, prosecuting, told the court: "Danielle Wails made an emergency 999 call asking for the fire service and the police.

"During the course of that telephone call she reported a fire and she claimed that she had been attacked and tied up. She said her baby son was on the other side of the other living room and she had not reached him because of the fire and the smoke.

"The tape recording of the call makes particular harrowing listening with baby Alexander’s shrieks all too audible."

Mr Sloan told how neighbours had heard Wails shouting through the letterbox: "My house is on fire. My baby, my baby."

He added: "Danielle Wails stumbled outside and lay down on the ground. She had some telephone wire around her right wrist only.

"She reported to neighbours that she had been attacked and knocked out and when she awoke the house was on fire.

"She said she had made the 999 call using her tongue."

Fire crews rescued Alexander from the burning house and he was taken to Newcastle General Hospital but he was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

Consultant psychiatrist Adrian East told the court he was satisfied Wails was suffering from postnatal depression, which had been diagnosed in the months before the killing.