Woman, 37 put burning newspaper through letterbox

DRUNKEN

A DRUNKEN woman posted a burning newspaper through her mother’s front door while she, her sister, brother-inlaw and niece were asleep inside.

Fortunately, the paper did not start a fire in the house, a court heard, but the next morning the family saw the charred newspaper.

The fire had scorched the plastic surrounding the letterbox but the flame had died down and gone out before it could cause any further damage.

Fire investigators were able to find fingerprints on the newspaper, which they concluded had been set alight with a naked flame, and that led them to arrest 37-year-old Michelle Grant, who was charged with arson.

After pleading guilty to the offence, which happened on December 12 last year, she appeared at Leicester Crown Court on Friday for sentencing.

Judge Timothy Spencer QC told her he had “some sympathy” for her because of incidents in her childhood, but these were not discussed in open court.

However, he said he also had to take into account the danger caused by what Grant did.

He said: “In the past 10 years I’ve seen three cases where people put burning newspapers or rags through a letterbox without any accelerant and in each of those cases it found something on the other side that it set alight.

“And once a fire has started, it’s really scary.

“Often hallways lead upstairs and it acts as a chimney. Before very long the whole thing is in flames and often worse than flames is the smoke.

“Often the victims are not burned to death, they’re choked to death.

“This is what happens. It didn’t in this case but it so easily could have done and you know that.

“I suspect you were off your head on drink.”

The judge told Grant, of Glenhills Boulevard, Aylestone, that when defendants claimed they were too drunk to remember their crimes he often did not believe them – but he would make an exception in her case.

He said: “You probably have absolutely no memory, genuinely. You’re off your head with drink most of the time.”

Grant, who has been convicted of 35 offences in the past, told the judge she started each day with two cups of tea and then two cans of super-strength lager.

She told him: “I don’t want to be like this. I want to stop.”

During mitigation, Grant’s barrister, James Bide-Thomas, told the court about his client.

He said: “Michelle Grant has had problems throughout her life. Some of those problems originate in her childhood. Drink has been an ever-present problem. She drinks consistently and heavily – usually Skol Super, four to six cans as well as brandy sometimes.”

He said she lived with permanent isolation and hopelessness and that “drink has been a crutch”.

Sentencing Grant to 15 months, suspended for two years, Judge Spencer told her: “Your record is a bad one but I look at you and I can’t fail to have some sympathy.

“If you’d set this house alight you’d be going away from a long time.”

Warning her that the next time she appeared in his court she would be jailed, he said: “I think this is the third time we’ve met and each time you go home – if there’s a fourth, you will not.”

She was ordered to take part in a 12-month alcohol treatment programme and made subject to a restraining order to protect her mother whom, the court heard, had been estranged from Grant for nearly 10 years.

DAUGHTER TARGETED HER