Tenant jailed for arson after landlord battles flat fire

A landlord was forced to battle flames after his tenant set fire to a flat and threatened neighbours with a knife in a shocking incident on Anglesey.

Caleb Corr, 33, of Don Flats in Pentraeth, has been jailed for four years after admitting arson being reckless as to whether lives were endangered at Caernarfon Crown Court yesterday.

The court heard that residents smelt smoke coming from Corr’s ground floor flat in the early hours of May 13. The landlord rushed into the building and found a towel burning in the hall, which he put out before using a fire extinguisher to tackle a second blaze in the hallway. The fires caused around £1,000 of damage.

Prosecutor Myles Wilson told the court that Corr was then seen “standing by the window of his ground floor flat shouting abuse at a neighbour.” He threw a glass bottle through the open window at her, missing her, before picking up a breadknife and threatening the neighbour with it.

When police arrived and asked Corr what he was doing, Mr Wilson said the defendant “wouldn’t put the knife down until police went into his flat and threatened to Taser him.”

After his arrest, Corr spat around his police car cell, forcing it to be taken out of service for cleaning.

Defence barrister Jemma Gordon said Corr has Asperger’s and complex needs, adding that he is “emotionally impaired due to damage from trauma while growing up” and displays “self-destructive behaviour particularly when he is misusing alcohol in an environment which is not stable.”

Her Honour Judge Nicola Jones told Corr he had “put several people in danger by setting fire to the flats.” Along with the four-year sentence for arson, she imposed an eight-month jail term for affray and a one-month term for criminal damage, both to run concurrently.