The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Mother torched flat to land house move
A MOTHER torched her own flat in a bid to force council chiefs to re-house her.
Kirsty McFadyen, 24, did the school run then went home to build a bonfire before dowsing it in oil and setting the property on fire.
The mother-of-two then fled with her toddler daughter and locked the flat, endangering the residents of 11 neighbouring properties.
She carried out the bizarre plan in a bid to win a move to a new home because she felt the local authority had not dealt quickly enough with her request to move.
McFadyen soaked a pile of papers in cooking oil and said she had chosen that accelerant because it would create a lot of smoke to damage the first-floor flat.
Perth Sheriff Court was told that the fire brigade were called to the scene and discovered that the blaze had been started deliberately from inside the property.
McFadyen, Culliven Court, Perth, admitted culpably and recklessly starting the blaze at 73 Murray Place in Stanley on August 29 last year.
She admitted gathering a quantity of papers and torching it so the fire took hold and destroyed the carpet in the flat.
Depute fiscal Lisa Marshall said: “The accused and her friend dropped their children at primary school before returning to her flat.
“They had a conversation, during which she said she intended to set her flat on fire to secure a move to alternative accommodation.”
“SHE PUT junk mail and papers on the floor, put on gloves, poured cooking oil across the carpet near the front door and used a lighter to set fire to the papers.
“The friend ran from the flat with the accused’s daughter and then the accused left the flat, locking the front door.
“They walked to the primary school to collect their children and then returned to the block of flats.
“When they got back the smoke alarm was sounding and they telephoned 999 and asked for the fire brigade.
“They attended. The fire had burned itself out.
“The accused was subse- quently detained by police and made admissions.
“It’s a council-owned block of flats. It is six flats in which she occupied the middle one. There is an adjacent block of six further flats so a total of 12 households were potentially at risk,” Miss Marshall told the court.
Solicitor David Holmes, defending, said: “She felt this was a way of effecting a housing transfer.”
Mr Holmes said McFadyen wanted to move because she felt her older child was being bullied
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told McFadyen it was “with some considerable reluctance” that he was not jailing her, but instead ordered her to carry out 200 hours unpaid work and placed her on 18 months supervision.