Lowestoft arsonist jailed for setting rubbish alight

Brandon Catchpole sent a “tirade” of abusive messages, including one which said: “Just wait”, to the woman over a number of hours after she refused to let him stay the night at her home in Lowestoft, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

The woman went to bed at her maisonette in Bourne Road, Lowestoft and shortly after she woke at 6.30am her fire alarm went off, said Joe Bird, prosecuting.

When she went to a staircase leading to her ground floor front door she could smell smoke and outside she found a brick and timber outbuilding containing rubbish next to her front door was on fire.

Catchpole, of London Road South, Lowestoft, admitted arson but claimed he had been smoking in the outbuilding and hadn’t started the fire deliberately.

Brandon Catchpole was jailed for nearly three years for setting fire to the rubbish outside a former partner's home. (Image: Suffolk Constabulary)

After hearing evidence at an earlier hearing, Judge Nicola Talbot-Hadley accepted Catchpole had started the fire recklessly and adjourned sentence until Monday for a psychiatric report.

Sentencing Catchpole, Judge Nicola Talbot-Hadley said the woman lived in a row of terraced houses and what he’d done had been “extremely risky”.

She said he had decided to stay in the outbuilding after the victim wouldn’t let him stay with her and the fire had started after a discarded cigarette set light to rubbish.

In a statement read to the court the victim said she no longer felt safe in her home after the fire and worried that something bad was going to happen to her.

“I keep thinking what might have happened. I could have been seriously injured or died,” she said.

Nicola Thompson for Catchpole said her client had spent ten months in custody since the fire in December and had expressed remorse.