INVERNESS SHERIFF COURT: Liverpool man set city bedroom on fire
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The man also told police he hoped adults and children in neighbouring properties had been killed.
A Liverpool man who pursued a vendetta against an Inverness man and woman deliberately drove his car into her vehicle and set her home on fire.
Police had arrived at the Drumossie Road property before the blaze took hold and arrested 24-year-old Joseph Robinson, of no fixed abode, on June 20, though not before he had doused an upstairs bedroom in stolen petrol and poured fuel over himself.
Inverness Sheriff Court heard the bedroom was destroyed and Robinson told police he hoped people in neighbouring properties had been killed.
He admitted the theft of a petrol canister and fuel from the Esso garage in Longman Road as well as driving dangerously and with excess alcohol.
He also admitted wilfully setting the bedroom on fire, threatening to set himself on fire, uttering threats to police and headbutting and spitting on the side of a police van.
He was jailed for three years and banned from driving for four-and-a-half years.
The court heard that after stealing the petrol he went to Drumossie Road where he drove his car “very fast and deliberately into the rear of the woman’s vehicle”.
Fiscal depute Martina Eastwood told Sheriff Sara Matheson that the man and woman drove off in fear and when police arrived they saw Robinson at the front door. He locked it and went upstairs.
Ms Eastwood said: “Police entered via the unlocked back door and Robinson, who was upstairs warned officers not to come up, doused himself in petrol and threatened to set himself on fire.
“Police restrained him but the smoke alarm went off. The fire and rescue service were called to extinguish the fire. While in the police van he said he would kill the officers and hoped that adults and children in neighbouring properties were killed in the fire.”
Defence solicitor advocate Neil Wilson told the court: “He knows he is going to be sentenced to a jail sentence and a substantial one.
"On June 20, he was homeless and living in his car in the Inverness area due to certain difficulties he had in Liverpool that he was anxious to avoid.
"He accepts what he has done is serious, that he is fortunate the consequences weren’t worse and the he is not appearing in a high (court) forum.”
