A MAN who set fire to a vacant house he had been staying in has been jailed for 3 1/2 years. Passing sentence at Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, Judge Patrick Smith said people like the defendant must be removed from society and the public must be protected from them.
Norman Rowan (25), Tower View, Tinure, Dunleer, Co Louth was also sentenced to two years for 20 other crimes, including criminal damage and larceny.
The court had heard that on Christmas Eve 1995 Rowan, who had been involved in the local drug scene, was thrown out of his home. He kicked in the door of the vacant house on George's Street, Drogheda which had previously been rented out to a friend of his.
After staying there for four nights, he had met a friend and their intention, the court heard, was to wreck the house. Damage totalling £1,560 was done to furniture and fittings in the house. A duvet was taken from a bed and set ablaze in a front sitting room, then placed on a settee which in turn caught fire.
In his statement to gardai last January, Rowan said they had returned to the house after five minutes and saw the flames and started laughing.
Judge Smith said the defendant's problem was drink and drugs which had necessitated the commission of crimes to feed his addiction. He said he would review the sentences, which are to run concurrently, in October 1998, but at that stage Rowan must be drug free.
