19-year-old Alex Thomas Raftery has admitted causing £150,000 worth of damage by setting a fire which destroyed 3 barns on a farm in Ryde last year.
Raftery, of Poole Lane in Bournemouth but previously from the Isle of Wight, appeared before the Isle of Wight Crown Court today (Monday) charged with arson.
As previously reported by Island Echo, the blaze on 1st August last year consumed around 800 haybales and saw firefighters from the mainland drafted in to provide cover across the Island.
The court heard how the teenager set 2 fires on land off Gatehouse Road, but one of the fires was extinguished by a second teenager, a 16-year-old – who cannot be named for legal reasons. That act has seen the 16-year-old cleared of any wrongdoing by Judge Hetherington. The second fire was not extinguished and it soon ripped through 3 barns.
Having admitted arson, Raftery will now appear before the Isle of Wight Crown Court on 26th March for sentencing.
have an attachment of earnings order, via the HMRC/benfits agency – that is set at £150,000 and no matter where he goes, whether he pays through PAYE or deductions from benefits, money should be collected from him throughout his lifetime at an appropriate rate until the £150k is paid off, even if it takes his entire life, through to pension age.
Give him the opportunity to clear the debt earlier or continuing paying it for the rest of his life (£2k per year means paid off in 75 years or when he is 94)
The insurer compensates the farmer, the insurer pays less tax due to the loss incurred, paying out the farmer and the state recovers the lost tax from the dodgy little arsonist, through deductions from pay or benefits, no matter how long it takes.
Well said!! Give this man a medal
Chop the little buggars hands off he won’t set fire to anything again
But then he’d be disabled and claim benefits, which I get the impression you’d hate more. Please use your head.
Mmmmmm yea ur rite there lol
Lock the scum up for 10 years
“Our Island.” Dear, oh dear. Are you excluded from the mainland, or all other towns, in fact where does your land end and others begin? When you leave your door? or when you leave your brain behind?
cage – for a socialist do gooding, lefty, you clearly aren’t up to understanding the concept of “our” as in belonging to those that live on the island.
Our Island – We pay the taxes, we generate the goods and services that keeps the population going – the land ends where the water begins and that is the physical and visual representation of the boundaries that exist in peoples minds, when they think of the “island”
The barns were terrible eyesores and needed to be pulled down before the blaze. As long as no none was hurt make the culprit pay for the hay and call it quits!
The Ryde Theatre and old Royal York Hotel are terrible eyesores – shall we burn those down as well – as long as no one is hurt eh Mary Mattocks
What kind of excuse making logic is that.
How about someone comes round to your home and burns it down, because it looks an eyesore, in their opinion – jeez – some people.
typical socialist, lefty, excuse making, hand wringing, worry about the perpetrator and not the victim, comments from cage – quelle surprise.
At 19, he won’t give a toss and would relish the chance at having a weak willed, lefty simp let him off, so that he can laugh all the way home.
“Inadvertently burns down some barns” – are you actually for real cage – did the lighter accidentally fall onto the hay and accidentally light itself
This is why this country is in such a state, because of hand wringing excuse makers like cage.