11-13-2013, 09:39 PM
Daniel Martin, 25, started fire at flat, saying he meant to scare Andrew Heath, who had convictions of indecent assault.
[img]i.guim.co.uk/thumb/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/11/8/1383939356976/Daniel-Martin-25--was-fou-005.jpg[/img]
Daniel Martin, 25, pleaded guilty to the
manslaughter of Andrew Heath, 52, after
setting fire to his flat.
A man who admitted killing a convicted sex offender in a fire at his home has been jailed for 10 years. Daniel Martin, 25, set fire to a wheelie bin and pushed it up against the front door of Andrew Heath's flat in Worcester in the early hours of 14 December 2011, starting a fire in which the 52-year-old was killed.
Sentencing Martin for manslaughter at Birmingham crown court, Mrs Justice Thirlwall said the crime was "shockingly stupid".
She said Martin had intended "to do something so frightening, it would cause him [Heath] to move away from the area where he had lived since 2001".
"You say you threw stones at his window to try and wake him and say you saw a light come on," she added. "Whatever you did, it was too little, too late.
"You say your intention was only to frighten the victim, and the prosecution accept you did not intend to kill or attempt to cause really serious harm." She added she was not satisfied that Martin was a danger to the public, but he was "a liar and thoroughly antisocial", with a lamentable record of previous convictions, though not for similar offences.
Thirlwall also accepted Martin had expressed genuine remorse for his crime. She also heard prosecution evidence indicating that Martin had an IQ in the lowest percentile.
Heath died of smoke inhalation in what the judge said must have been a "terrifying experience", in which he would have known he would almost certainly die.
She added that the fire spread quickly, burning through the front door and up Heath's stairway into the flat. His burnt body was found by firefighters slumped against a radiator.
The victim, who was gay, had five convictions for gross indecency and indecent assault in the 1980s and 1990s against teenagers aged between 14 and 17 in Leicester and Birmingham. His last conviction was in 1999.
The former doorman moved from Birmingham to Worcester in 2001. Martin was separately jailed for six
months and two and a half years for two burglaries carried out before his arrest for Heath's killing in October last year. He was further imprisoned for six
months for assaulting another man in the street in Worcester. All the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.
After the sentencing, Heath's sister Leia Charleson said her brother's death had had a devastating effect on the health of their parents, who were unable to come to terms with what happened. "Both of my parents passed away without having an answer to their only son's death, and before Daniel Martin admitted his guilt [in June]," she said. She welcomed the outcome as "some comfort" for the family's grief.
"Despite what Andrew did in the past, he did not deserve to die in such a cruel way," Charleson added.
[img]i.guim.co.uk/thumb/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/11/8/1383939356976/Daniel-Martin-25--was-fou-005.jpg[/img]
Daniel Martin, 25, pleaded guilty to the
manslaughter of Andrew Heath, 52, after
setting fire to his flat.
A man who admitted killing a convicted sex offender in a fire at his home has been jailed for 10 years. Daniel Martin, 25, set fire to a wheelie bin and pushed it up against the front door of Andrew Heath's flat in Worcester in the early hours of 14 December 2011, starting a fire in which the 52-year-old was killed.
Sentencing Martin for manslaughter at Birmingham crown court, Mrs Justice Thirlwall said the crime was "shockingly stupid".
She said Martin had intended "to do something so frightening, it would cause him [Heath] to move away from the area where he had lived since 2001".
"You say you threw stones at his window to try and wake him and say you saw a light come on," she added. "Whatever you did, it was too little, too late.
"You say your intention was only to frighten the victim, and the prosecution accept you did not intend to kill or attempt to cause really serious harm." She added she was not satisfied that Martin was a danger to the public, but he was "a liar and thoroughly antisocial", with a lamentable record of previous convictions, though not for similar offences.
Thirlwall also accepted Martin had expressed genuine remorse for his crime. She also heard prosecution evidence indicating that Martin had an IQ in the lowest percentile.
Heath died of smoke inhalation in what the judge said must have been a "terrifying experience", in which he would have known he would almost certainly die.
She added that the fire spread quickly, burning through the front door and up Heath's stairway into the flat. His burnt body was found by firefighters slumped against a radiator.
The victim, who was gay, had five convictions for gross indecency and indecent assault in the 1980s and 1990s against teenagers aged between 14 and 17 in Leicester and Birmingham. His last conviction was in 1999.
The former doorman moved from Birmingham to Worcester in 2001. Martin was separately jailed for six
months and two and a half years for two burglaries carried out before his arrest for Heath's killing in October last year. He was further imprisoned for six
months for assaulting another man in the street in Worcester. All the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.
After the sentencing, Heath's sister Leia Charleson said her brother's death had had a devastating effect on the health of their parents, who were unable to come to terms with what happened. "Both of my parents passed away without having an answer to their only son's death, and before Daniel Martin admitted his guilt [in June]," she said. She welcomed the outcome as "some comfort" for the family's grief.
"Despite what Andrew did in the past, he did not deserve to die in such a cruel way," Charleson added.
