A JUDGE has said we will never find out why an arsonist started a series of “devastating” fires in South Oxfordshire, as he sectioned him under the Mental Health Act.

Yesterday it was described as “miraculous” that no one was killed or seriously injured in the four blazes caused by Andrew Main on January 15.

His targets were South Oxfordshire District Council’s offices and Chadwick’s Funeral Service, both on Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford, as well as his own house in Rokemarsh and the thatched cottage of his 80-year-old next door neighbour.

Prosecutor Michael Roques said during the early hours of the morning the 47-year-old used pressurised gas cannisters to start the fires, causing between £15m and £20m worth of damage to the council offices alone.

The barrister said 194 firefighters from four counties fought the blazes, leaving Oxfordshire “hugely under resourced” and vulnerable to further fires.

 

Mr Roques said the north wing of the council offices was “completely destroyed” after Main crashed through its glass reception with his car and set a gas cannister alight.

The prosecutor said it was lucky Main’s neighbour Jean Gladstone, who was asleep in bed when the fire started, had smoke alarms installed two years ago, having lived in her now-destroyed cottage for 39 years.

Mr Roques said: “It is quite frankly miraculous that no-one was killed on that morning.

“The fact that the fire was started by way of pressurised gas cannisters was an inherently dangerous way of starting fires.

“The expert fire officer said that if such a cannister was to fail, the resulting explosion can result in a fireball 25m into the air and fragments of other debris being projected up to 200m.”

But Main, who was described as a professional sheep shearer and a “loner” by his defence barrister Graham Logan, has never given a reason for his actions.

Mr Logan added that in December 2014, around the one-year anniversary of his mother’s death, his client had entered a “depressive spiral”.

Judge Ian Pringle told him: “We will never know why you picked the targets that you did, but we know the consequences were utterly, utterly devastating.”

He added: “We have, in effect, motiveless crimes of an enormous nature.”

Dr Seena Fazel, a psychologist who examined Main, said he was suffering from a psychotic episode when he started the fires and was probably bipolar.

Asked if his patient had given him a reason for his actions he said: “No, he was unable to give me an explanation.”

Dr Fazel said Main’s father had mentioned a planning application for houses his son wanted to build, which the defendant believed had been refused by the council, but added that this may have been a “delusion”.

Mr Roques said after the fires Main tried to kill himself twice, and after he was unsuccessful he walked up to police, put his hands out in front of him and said: “I think you’re looking for me”.

He has pleaded guilty to four counts of arson reckless as to whether life was endangered.

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ow he will be detained at Littlemore Mental Health Hospital after Judge Pringle made an order under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act. Judge Pringle added that if Main had not been mentally ill when he committed the offences he would have considered giving him a life sentence.

The funeral parlour suffered about £100,000 worth of damage, but one of the business’s owners, Alistair Cox, said he was not disappointed that Main would not face prison.

He said: “He needs help and I feel for his family – I’m not going to condemn him.

“At the end of the day I’m just glad no one was hurt – it could have been a lot worse.”