A WOMAN accused of setting fire to Haverfordwest’s Premier Inn was remanded in custody by magistrates today (Wednesday, January 21).

Georgina Tranter, 26, of Redstone Court, Narberth sobbed in the dock as charges of arson, taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent, failing to provide a sample when requested by police and driving without appropriate insurance were read out.

Tranter, a chemistry graduate who works as a refinery lab technician pleaded guilty to all three motoring offences.

Her defence solicitor, Jonathon Webb, indicated that there would be a guilty plea “of some sort” to the charge of committing arson with intent to endanger life or regardless of whether life was endangered.

Magistrates committed the arson charge to Swansea crown court, where a preliminary hearing will be held on January 27.

Vaughan Pritchard-Jones, prosecuting, requested that Tranter be remanded in custody until that date.

He said that since her arrest Tranter had been on one to one watch while in custody for fear that she would try to harm herself.

He told the court that on January 17 Tranter had attended the Hunt Ball with her boyfriend and a friend. While there he had paid her very little attention. She had got drunk and snorted a gram of what she believed to be cocaine.

After the ball the couple went back to the Premier Inn where he had locked her out of their room. The hotel receptionist eventually called the police who drove Tranter to her mother’s address in Narberth.

They assumed that she would stay there; however, she then took the keys to her mother’s Peugeot and drove back to the Premier Inn.

133 guests were evacuated from the hotel at around 6.30am on Sunday morning after a fire on the exterior of a fire door was extinguished by a resident.

Jonathan Webb indicated that his client would enter “some sort” of guilty plea at crown court. He told magistrates that his client was of previously clean character and a university graduate.

“There is nothing at all to suggest why this young lady would do something as extreme as this,” he said.

Magistrates remitted the case to crown court and remanded Tranter in custody until then.

“This is a very complicated case,” they said. “We are not granting you bail because we have substantial grounds to believe that you will harm yourself and in doing so may harm other people.”