Man to be jailed for setting fire to apartment with children inside

A man who set fire to an apartment with three children inside will be sentenced later this month.

Ian O’Connor (29), of Emmet Crescent, Inchicore, Dublin threw a pipe bomb at another family home less than a month later, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.

He pleaded guilty to arson at Tyrone Place, Inchicore on September 18th, 2017. He also pleaded guilty to arson at Ailesbury Road, Dublin on October 15th, 2017.

Det Insp David Harrington told Philipp Rahn BL, prosecuting, that on the date in September, Margaret Green was asleep in her apartment along with her three children and woke to find the stairs on fire.

Ms Green was trapped upstairs by the fire and tried unsuccessfully to smash the windows to escape. She covered her two youngest children with wet towels in her bedroom and was choking on smoke when they were rescued by the fire brigade.

Her eldest son had fallen asleep while watching television downstairs and woke up to the sight of the front door on fire. He escaped via a balcony at the back of the apartment with the help of a neighbour who brought him a ladder.

O’Connor admitted to starting the fire by pouring petrol in the letterbox and on the front door. He said he owed money to certain persons who had instructed him to light the fire and had told him that there would be nobody in the house.

Bag of cocaine

Det Insp Harrington agreed with Caroline Biggs SC, defending, that O’Connor believed that had he not lit the fire, then his family would have been pipe-bombed. O’Connor was given a bag of cocaine beforehand, but said he did not do it for the drugs.

In a victim impact statement which was read out in court, Ms Green said that her seven-year-old daughter’s hearing aid had melted in the fire, causing a permanent scar to her ear. The court heard that all four members of the family sustained injuries.

Ms Green said she thought she and her family were all going to die and remembers her youngest son telling her that he was going to heaven and that he would come back and help them escape the fire.

Det Garda Shane Cahill told the court that on the date in October, William Godson woke to find flames outside the kitchen window of the home of his parents and younger siblings. He grabbed bottles of water and used them to douse the fire.

O’Connor told gardaí­ he got an offer of €2,000 to put a petrol bomb through a window and was told there was no one in the house, but he had not been paid as it had not worked. He said he had brought two petrol bombs to the house but had only thrown one.

Det Garda Cahill agreed with Ms Biggs that her client had been in debt and felt he had no option of getting money anywhere else. He agreed that there was some speculation that the wrong house had been targeted.

Judge Melanie Greally remanded O’Connor in custody and adjourned the matter for sentencing on March 22nd.