Man gets 18 months in jail for trying to burn down family’s home
A man who tried to burn down a home where a Kelowna area family was sleeping has been jailed for 18 months.
Matthew David Hanson, 33, lit a fire on the porch and entered the home before he was scared off by the family’s barking dog.
Roused by the commotion, father David Yerema rushed outside and managed to put out the fire, but not before he was burned.
Hanson pleaded guilty to arson endangering life. The Crown had asked for a jail term of between three and five years for Hanson. His defence had suggested a conditional discharge.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Steven Wilson settled on 18 months.
“This was a terrifying event for the victims and one that could have had catastrophic consequences but for the quick action of one of the homeowners,” Wilson wrote in a sentencing decision released this week.
“It could have involved the loss of their home, or much, much worse,” Wilson wrote.
Court heard there was no particular motive for the arson attack. Hanson and the Yerema family were neighbours in the Okanagan Centre neighbourhood of Lake Country, north of Kelowna.
On Sept. 9, 2018, about 6:50 a.m., Hanson walked onto the Yerema’s property. He lit a fire on the porch, then entered an unlocked door and began rifling through the refrigerator. The family’s dog started barking, and Hanson ran off.
Five people were asleep in the house at the time — David Yerema and his wife Rasa, their two children, and a visiting relative.
David Yerema, still wearing his pyjamas, managed to put out the fire on the porch. But he suffered second-degree burns to his leg, as well as smoke inhalation.
“Ms. Yerema set off in pursuit and was able to take some photographs of the accused, who was sauntering down the street despite the fire,”Wilson wrote in the sentencing decision.
When Hanson was arrested, police remarked on the smell of diesel fuel on his hands.
Security cameras in the Yerema’s home provided clear images of Hanson. But he did not plead guilty until shortly before his trial was to have begun.
During the earlier court proceeding, the defence said Hanson had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse.
But Hanson was said to have been sober and to have completed an addiction treatment program since he was arrested, and was now gainfully employed as a drywaller.
Judge Wilson said Hanson was remorseful and had made “substantial and significant” efforts to deal with his addiction problems.
“I accept that he appears to be on the right road to establishing a prosocial and productive life,” Wilson said of Hanson, rejecting Crown prosecutor David Ruse’s request for a significantly longer jail term.
Defence lawyer B.S. Lynskey had said it was a case with exceptional circumstances and had asked for Hanson to be given a conditional discharge.
Minus the 36 days he was given credit for in pre-trial custody, the 18-month jail term means Hanson was jailed for 511 days.
For their part, the Yerema family said the incident had had a profound, unsettling, and longlasting effect on them.
“The family has lost the sense of security that all citizens should enjoy in their home,” Wilson wrote in his sentencing decision. “This was a case where the victims were a regular family, asleep in their home.”