Man set fire to home of neighbour, 84, when he went out

A man who got talking to an 84-year-old neighbour who was going shopping burgled his home when he was out and set fire to it — causing over €150,000 damage and destroying irreplaceable mementos of his late wife.

The crime and an earlier one resulted in the culprit, Martin Doyle, aged 23, of 20, Mount Eden Rise, Blarney St, Cork, getting a 10-year sentence at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday with the last two years suspended.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said: “This was mindless, reckless, disrespectful for neighbours and others and their property. Drugs does not excuse this kind of behaviour.”

Dealing leniently with the accused in the past had no effect on him, the judge said.

Detective Garda Alan Johnson said the injured party was walking from his home on Blarney St to Dunnes Stores on North Main St, something he did twice a week. That afternoon he met the accused and he got talking to him.

He came home to find that the accused had burgled his home and set fire to it in three places. Neighbours had to stop the pensioner from going into his home against smoke and flames to retrieve mementos.

The house was destroyed and cost the insurance company €153,000 to rebuild. The whole event resulted in the pensioner losing the confidence he had in going out and about.

Five months earlier Doyle got a three-year prison sentence suspended for a robbery from a man on his way home.

The crime was committed shortly after 8pm on November 10, 2012, at Wellington Road, Cork, as the victim was walking with a bag over his shoulder containing his wallet, phone and lunch box.