Arsonist ex-girlfriend will be reunited with baby after jail term cut

A SCORNED girlfriend who set fire to her boyfriend’s home after he dumped her will soon be back with the baby daughter she gave birth to in prison after a ruling by judges.

Kasey-Lee Schembri, 21, set fire to a babygro and stuffed it through the letterbox of her boyfriend’s home after he ended their relationship on Valentine’s Day.

Schembri said she had snapped after being told by her partner that he wanted nothing to do with the child she was pregnant with.

She said he had thrown baby clothes out of the flat and covered them with mud outside the block where he lived in Falcon Drive, Cardiff Bay.

When quizzed by police, Schembri said she had not intended to set fire to the flat but pleaded guilty to arson. Only minor damage was caused.

She was jailed for two years and two months for the offence and breaching a suspended sentence at Cardiff Crown Court in August.

But on Wednesday, after a hearing at the Court of Appeal, three senior judges quashed the “manifestly excessive” sentence and slashed it to 20 months.

Due to the time she served before she was sentenced, the decision means Schembri will be freed on licence by mid-December, allowing her home to take care of the baby.

The court heard Schembri and her boyfriend had been in a relationship for about a year and she was four months’ pregnant when he announced he was dumping her.

She subsequently had the baby behind bars but, due to a lack of facilities at Eastwood Park Prison, was unable to keep her child with her.

Instead she has been seeing the baby for two-hour visits once a week, said her barrister Matthew Roberts.

Mr Roberts said: “She is absolutely desperate to be reunited with her new child and try to put this matter behind her.”