€4m hotel damage chef gets last chance

A young chef, who caused almost €4m damage when he burned Grainger’s public house and ‘B&B’ in Baldoyle to the ground, has been given a chance to escape jail.

Gaven Kinsella was told by Judge Joseph Matthews that he deserved a chance because he was a first-time offender and there was a "fine" probation report before him.

However, Judge Matthews, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, expressed concern that Kinsella had been abusing cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine since he last appeared in court.

He told Kinsella that he was prepared to allow him to take up a place in the Coolmine Lodge drug rehabilitation centre but added that if there was no improvement the next time he came before the court, he would have no alternative but to jail him for some years.

Judge Matthews adjourned the case until May 27 for mention to see when Kinsella could take up a place in Coolmine.

Kinsella, aged 20, from Templeview Way, Clare Hall, Baldoyle, was a former lounge boy at Grainger’s. He pleaded guilty to recklessly damaging it by fire on January 10, 2002.

The court previously heard that Kinsella put a match to a black plastic bag in a wheelie bin outside when he was on his way home drunk.

He told gardaí he did it "for a laugh" and because he was "locked and being a fool".

The lounge area, the ‘B&B’ and the adjacent shop, all the property of Mark Grainger, was completely destroyed as a result. Seven people who were staying there managed to escape after being alerted by the fire alarm.

Detective Garda Paul O’Donohue said the damage totalled €3,809,214. Kinsella, who went home after lighting the match, went to the gardaí the following evening after hearing about the fire from a friend and reading about in an evening newspaper.

Mr Peter Thompson, who employed Kinsella as a chef in the Clontarf Court Hotel after the offence, said he was given a promotion after three months working for him and that he had the potential to become a "junior Conrad Gallagher".

Judge Matthews said: "There was no intent to burn down any premises. He was reckless, without any thought for the consequences. That’s the bottom line. But it had a very traumatic affect, not just on a property, but on the lives of people, because of the stupid actions of a drunk youth.

"He is a man of unimpeachable record, except for this horrific blip on the radar screen and this creates a severe difficulty because if people had died in their beds, even if he was a living saint, the consequences would have been horrific.

"If this appears in the newspapers then the average Joe Soap on the street would be horrified if he got away with ‘don’t drink’."

Mr Grainger, who went through a similar arson on his public house in 1992, told the court he had been "to hell and back in the last 18 months" but his biggest concern when he arrived at the scene was the welfare of the seven people who were staying in the ‘B&B’.

He said: "When I arrived there was panic on the streets but the biggest heart attack I got was when I was asked to identify the people staying there because the premises was completely destroyed. Thank God they were all safe.

"I stood there in the street, seeing my business, that took me over 40 years to build, burn to the ground. I cannot describe in words the feelings of despair and lost hope I experienced that night.

"I was also concerned that I had to make my 24 employees redundant. I feel sorry for them and their families, who too had to rebuild their lives and look for employment elsewhere. No member of Mr Kinsella’s family has ever come to me to apologise."

Mr Grainger added that he suffered a personal financial loss of €1m and for the first year after the fire he was unable to get insurance.

However, this year was insured for €70,000 when he previously was paying €23,000. He said this would take years to get over.

Judge Matthews offered Mr Grainger his utmost sympathy and wished him the best of luck in the future. He described him as a man of "great substance and integrity".

He added that it was only by the grace of God that Mr Grainger was not a witness in a multiple murder case in the Central Criminal Court, with a pathologist going through the charred remains of seven dead people.

Mr Martin Giblin SC, for Kinsella, said his client was now a light drinker but hadn’t given up alcohol completely. He pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and gave himself up to the gardaí voluntarily.

"It was just a stupid, reckless act that thankfully did not have far more tragic consequences", Mr Giblin added.