Arsonist set fire to house after lighting candle to disguise smell of family cat
A man accused of recklessly endangering his mother's life after setting fire to their home has avoided an immediate prison sentence.
Scott Speakman had attended a family wedding at the Molineux stadium in Wolverhampton earlier in the day but had become upset and left for home.
In his bedroom he lit a candle to disguise the smell of the family cat, leaving it alight on his bed before going out, but he also left the cat inside the room, a court heard.
His mother, who returned home 40 minutes after him, heard her son going up and down the stairs as she prepared for bed in an adjacent room. She said he was still upset from the earlier incident.
Mr Jamie Scott, prosecuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court that Mrs Speakman heard the front door slam and shortly afterwards the sound of the smoke alarm. When she went to investigate, she was met with thick black fumes on the landing.
She saw that the bottom bunk in her son's bedroom was ablaze and smoke was filling the rest of the semi-detached property in Wednesfield. Emergency services were sent to the scene and Mrs Speakman taken to hospital by ambulance where she was treated for smoke inhalation.
Her son's bedroom was destroyed in the incident and the house declared uninhabitable, the court heard. Police also attended and asked Speakman about the blaze when he returned home at 2.20am but he claimed he had been sleeping in the park and knew nothing about the fire.
Defending him, Mr Mukhtar Ubhi said Speakman had never been in trouble with the police before and that the fire had been accidental. The defendant had not intended to cause a blaze, he insisted.
Judge Simon Ward said he was taking the 'very peculiar circumstances' of the case into consideration as well as the defendant's age and lack of previous convictions. He also accepted that Speakman had not deliberately set out to commit arson.
"It seems to me wrong to immediately send you to prison," he concluded.
Speakman, of Harper Avenue, Wolverhampton, pleaded guilty to arson, being reckless as to whether life was endangered.
He was handed a 16-month jail term suspended for two years with a 25-day rehabilitation requirement and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work in the community.
