Man sparks fire in police station by setting light to toilet roll to dry wet clothes

[Night Hunter]

                                 

A man has been jailed after sparking a police station fire by setting light to a toilet roll - in order to dry his wet clothes.

Marc Gibson, 34, attended a police station in Bolton, Greater Manchester, on a rainy March 11 as police investigated an attack on his girlfriend.

But Bolton Crown Court heard that while popping to the toilet at the station, he set fire to a loo roll with a cigarette lighter in an attempt to dry his soaked clothes.

When the fire alarm sounded, officers found Gibson locked in the disabled toilet with scorched burn marks on the wall and floor.

 

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Judge Timothy Stead said: "Whatever you were trying to do in there, ordinary decent people do not set fire to toilet roll in police stations. While answering bail, you caused damage by fire in the disabled toilet. This case, it seems, is a matter of vandalism."

The court was told the assault on his partner happened just before last Christmas during a conversation about Gibson's five-year-old son.

Gibson had been in a relationship with the woman for about 10 months, but she had difficulties with his son as she was not the boy's mother, the court heard.

The court heard Gibson shouted at her, then launched a "prolonged and sustained" assault. He left her with a bruised face and body and needing hospital attention for a suspected damaged eye socket.

He hit her in the mouth, bit her nose, used a small table to hit her in the legs. He even grabbed her hair and hit her head against the wall three times.

 

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Gibson, of Halliwell, Bolton, admitted one count of assault and criminal damage. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay a victims' surcharge of £100.

Judge Stead added: "This assault is a nasty case. Not surprisingly, she was terrified. She was frightened at the time that you would kill her, such was the nature of the attack."

 

Source The telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk