A woman torched a neighbour's garden decking after wrongly suspecting him of being a paedophile, a court has heard. Ceri-Ann Arthur bought petrol from a garage and set fire to her victim's deck in the middle of the night because he thought he had been filming her daughter with his mobile phone.
Cardiff Crown Court heard police investigated her allegations and found no evidence to support them. A judge told 33-year-old Arthur she should not have taken the law into her own hands.
The court heard the victim and his wife were woken in the early hours of May 16 this year by their son who had heard a loud bang and seen a bright light through the curtains of the Hengoed property. When the couple looked out they saw their decking engulfed in flames. They went out to investigate what was going on and Arthur's daughter, who was in the area, was heard to say: "My mum did that." Police and the fire service were called and the blaze was put out before it could spread to nearby properties but the decking, garden furniture, and a section of fence were destroyed. A petrol can was found on the ground nearby. The court heard the total cost of the damage was almost £7,200.
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Police went to the defendant's address and found her on the phone to her mental health nurse. She was arrested and taken to a waiting police car. While being walked to the vehicle she said: "Do you know why I did it? Because he is a paedophile." Arthur then alleged the victim of the arson had taken a video of her daughter. The police found Arthur had arranged for petrol to be bought from a garage between midnight and 12.30am on the night in question.
The court heard police investigated the defendant's allegations about her neighbour but found no evidence he had any sexual interest in children or had been taking videos and they took no further action against him. Read about a driver who sped away from police because he was "scared by blue lights because it was Halloween".
In a statement read to the court from the victim he said the arson attack had had a devastating impact on him and his wife and had completely turned their world upside-down. He said they were now living with stress and anxiety and were in a "lose-lose situation" – not wanting to leave their "forever home" but not wanting to continue living in the property which was attacked.
Ceri-Ann Arthur, of Lansbury Avenue, Cefn Hengoed, Hengoed, Caerphilly, had previously pleaded guilty to arson when she appeared in the dock for sentencing. She has no previous convictions. Jeff Jones, for Arthur, said the defendant was contrite.
Judge Jeremy Jenkins told the defendant she had got it into her head that a neighbour living in the area had committed a criminal offence and, rather than reporting her concerns to the authorities, had taken the law into her own hands. He said the impact of what she did could not only be measured by the value of the damage caused but by the emotional stress caused.
The judge said he noted the defendant had been experiencing clinical depression at the time of the incident and he told her she needed to address her dependency on alcohol and to address the outlets she found for her anger as they were causing damage to herself and to others. With a discount for her guilty plea Arthur was sentenced to eight months in prison suspended for 18 months and was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course. She was also banned from contacting her victim for the next five years.
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