Woman setfireto herhome intown
A woman has been convicted of setting fire to her Motherwell home.
Akbibi Macmillan suffered fractures to her back and ribs when she fell as she tried to get out of the blazing property on Morven Drive.
A boy aged eight and two other females escaped unhurt.
Macmillan, 51, claimed the fire on July 18, 2020, started accidentally, but she was convicted of fireraising after trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court.
Police officers who were at her hospital bedside told the court she handed them a note intended for her husband that read ‘I know sorry is not enough for what I did, but it was not planned or anything.’
In the note she asked her husband to look after two children.
PC Andrew Hossack said: “She was very emotional and was ranting and raving. She kept trying to sit up in bed and kept saying she was sorry.”
The blaze broke out about noon and the court heard a neighbour used a ladder to rescue occupants from an upstairs room.
Detective Sergeant Scott Wilson said separate fires appeared to have been started in the kitchen and the dining room.
Giving evidence, Macmillan, who was born in Kazakhstan, said she usually smoked outside the house, but on that particular day she had a cigarette indoors because she was upset.
Her husband had left her and that morning she had argued with him on the phone. She admitted she was “really emotional”.
Macmillan said she had been using a candle on the dining room table as an ashtray and that was where the fire started.
She grabbed a dishtowel and “flapped” with it, trying to put out the flames.
She remembered taking the towel into the kitchen and thought she’d put it in the sink, but she accepted she might have left it on top of a cupboard.
Asked if she had intentionally set fire to the house, Macmillan replied: “No.”
After the jury’s verdict, Sheriff Martin Jones deferred sentence for a criminal justice social work report.