You committed the crime on 22 December On that day, you entered an unoccupied dwelling in Prospect in company with an unidentified person. The building was in a poor state of repair, and the doors and windows were not secured, so it was relatively easy for you to make entry. You and your companion gathered loose items into a pile in a corner of the front room of the dwelling. Each of you then set fire to the gathered items with cigarette lighters. After the material started to burn, you both fled from the house.
Passers-by alerted the fire brigade, which attended and extinguished the fire, but the house suffered significant damage and was substantially destroyed. The house was heritage listed, but, as I have said, was in a very poor state of repair.
It had been used by squatters for some time and there is evidence that it was being so used at the time of the offending. Having said that, it is accepted that no one else was actually in the home when you set the fire. You were 19 years of age at the time you committed this crime and are now There are a significant number of offences on your criminal record, which were committed before you turned However, there is nothing as serious as this, although in , you committed the offence of unlawfully setting fire to property which related to a stolen motor vehicle.
You were sentenced for that offence after you committed this crime. There is no suggestion on your record that you have committed any offences since this crime. I have been provided with a psychological assessment. This assessment is relevant to sentencing in a number of ways. Firstly, the prosecution accepts that your actions were unplanned and impulsive. You claim that your intention when you set fire to the material was not to set fire to the house. However, you concede that you consciously averted to the possibility that the house might catch fire and proceeded to commit the crime notwithstanding that risk.
In the circumstances of this case, there is little material distinction between the two states of mind, and your limited cognitive capacity and the consequent limitations on your judgment and ability to think through the consequences of your actions is consistent with this being an act of spontaneous vandalism. I think the distinction between the mental states would have more significance in terms of moral culpability if setting fire to the house was a planned and premeditated act.
